HEARING - U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

37
Was there any way that, in your own mind, if you went back 20
years, you could have planned for this, or bought insurance, or
done something?
Mrs. FISH. No. This is why I say people should be educated to
this, to start--
Senator PRESSLER. They should be educated to it?
Mrs. FISH. Yes, because people do not think of it.
Senator PRESSLER. But what could you have done if you were
educated or thought about it?
Mrs. FISH. I would have provided for this in the future-is this
what you are asking? I did not hear you.
Senator PRESSLER. Yes.
Mrs. FISH. Definitely, yes.
Senator PRESSLER. What kind of insurance could you have bought
to cover this?
Mrs. FISH. What kind of insurance-I do not understand your
question.
Senator PRESSLER. What kind of insurance would you have
bought, or how would you have provided for this?
Mrs. FISH. Do you mean like hospitalization?
Senator PRESSLER. Could you have purchased that?
Mrs. FISH. Yes. I had to purchase mine after I retired. I myself
carry my own health insurance.
Senator PRESSLER. But if you had bought that 20 years ago, you
could have bought it at a lower rate, and--
Mrs. FISH. Well, at work I was covered. So people do not think of
this a lot of times, you know, because you are covered with a lot of
hospitalization in your job. After I retired, then I had to pick up
my own, and a lot of people perhaps do not do that.
Senator PRESSLER. But you did do that?
Mrs. FISH. Yes, yes. Well, when I was at work, I was fully covered
with hospitalization, and I did not have to pay anything. After
I retired, that is cut off right then, and then you have to pick up
your own hospitalization. But my father, for years and years and
years, he did not work, and he was not covered with any kind of
insurance, ever. Even before he was working, they did not have it
at that time.
Senator PRESSLER. OK. But I think if we dig into it, we would
find that even if you had bought some of this insurance, or your
mother had--
Mrs. FISH. I tried to get insurance for her, but she was past 87, so
there was no insurance company where I could get anything for
her at the time when she came to live with me.
Senator PRESSLER. Well, then, maybe we need a public information
program-I do not know how we would do it; it is a complicated
thing. It seems as though there is almost no way for some
people to escape your situation without the Government having
some kind of catastrophic insurance.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman MELCHER. Senator Wilson.
Senator WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am not going to ask any questions of Mrs. Fish. I think she and
the other witnesses have been quite eloquent. One persistent theme
in the testimony of all of them-one that perhaps came out most