Get a Living Will

The Obamas have living wills and you should, too. You should also have powers of attorney as well. If you are in Utah and need help with these documents, contact us.

H/T Death and Taxes blog.

Headline of the Day

Lightning kills nine at funeral

The C.L.A.S.S. Act (Community Living Assistance Services and Support. To transform the way people pay for long-term care. Participants would receive daily benefits. They could use this money for home care adult day programs, or assisted living or nursing homes.

It creates a national insurance trust that people can voluntarily participate in. It's a publicly sponsored insurance plan. You have to pay premiums that will be average around $65 a month for five years before you can draw benefits. It will be self-funding.

While Medicaid already pays for some of the same services, you have to be really sick and really poor to qualify. The plan allows you to have no more than $2,000 in assets plus your house, which they will put a lien on when you die for reimbursement of your care. This plan has been proposed as a way of easing the burdens of middle class families.

The bill was introduced this summer by Senators Edward Kennedy and Tom Harkin and Representatives John Dingell and Frank Pallone.

In the Press Release on the bill they said that there are currently 10 million Americans in need of long-term care services. It quotes Sen. Kennedy, "Too many Americans are perfectly capable of living a life in the community, but are denied the supports they need. They languish in needless circumstances with no choice about how or where to obtain these services.Too often, they have to give up the American Dream – the dignity of a job, a home, and a family – so they can qualify for Medicaid, the only program that will support them. The bill we propose is a long overdue effort to offer greater dignity, greater hope, and greater opportunity. It makes a simple pact with all Americans – ‘If you work hard and contribute, society will take care of you when you fall on hard times.’”

Mysterious Syncronicity and the Popularity of Obituaries

The Flourishing Life of the Obit Desk

By Andrew Alexander
Sunday, August 2, 2009

"Did you catch the news about the golfer who died of a stroke? How about the librarian who checked out? Or the math teacher whose number was up?

They've heard them all on newspaper obituary desks."

So starts a Washington Post Post Mortem article today about the paper's obituary column. Mr. Alexander goes on to tell us that the obituary departments were at one time a starting point for novice reporters or the department to which they were sent when their careers foundered.

But today, obituaries are gaining increased audience and revenues. In the past six month's the Post's Obituary Web site have had almost three times as many pages as their popular "subsection" in the Metro section.

And while reporters once viewed the obit desk as the worst assignment, some now see working there as one of the best.

Always something interesting at the Post Mortem. Today's obituaries include the Boston DJ George Taylor Morris who started the urban legend about a mysterious synchronicity between Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and the movie classic "The Wizard of Oz." If you start them out at the same time "the lunatic is on the grass" line comes just when the Scarecrow begins dance near a green lawn. The line "got to keep the loonies on the path" comes just as Dorothy and the Scarecrow start down the Yellow Brick Road.

They've been cued up for you at the RollingStone if you want to have a look.