Nearly 10 million adults age 50 and over care for an aging parent, MetLife says. For the individual female caregiver, the cost impact of caregiving on in terms of lost wages, pension and Social Security benefits averages $324,044. For male caregivers, the figure is $283,716.

The study also identified a dramatic rise in the share of men and women providing basic parental care over the past decade and a half. In 1994, only 9 percent of women and 3 percent of men and were providing care. By 2008, the percentage of women caregivers had more than tripled to 28 percent, while the figure for men had quintupled to 17 percent. “Basic care” is defined as help with personal activities like dressing, feeding, and bathing. Daughters are more likely to provide basic care and sons are more likely to provide financial assistance, the study found.

“Undoubtedly, the impact of the aging population has resulted in increased need within families for family caregiving support,” the study notes.

At the same time, MetLife found that adult children age 50 and over who work and provide care to a parent are more likely to have fair or poor health than those who do not provide care to their parents.

The study was based on an analysis of data from the 2008 National Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

The findings have implications for individuals, employers and policymakers, MetLife concludes. Individuals, it says, should consider their own health when caregiving and should prepare financially for their own retirement. Employers can provide retirement planning and stress management information and assist employees with accommodations like flex-time and family leave.

On the policy side, although only a few states mandate paid family and medical leave, “clearly this policy would benefit working caregivers who need to take leave to care for an aging parent,” the study notes. MetLife also notes that the CLASS Act, a voluntary long-term care insurance program that is part of the new federal health reform law, will provide some coverage for long-term care needs as well as raise public awareness of the issue.

For more on the study, “The MetLife Study of Caregiving Costs to Working Caregivers: Double Jeopardy for Baby Boomers Caring for Their Parents,” click here.

For more information on estate planning and long-term care options, please contact Jill E. Sugarman, Esq. at 401-421-5115 or by e-mail at JSugarman@McLaughlinQuinn.com.

Proposed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) as part of his health care reform bill, the plan would set up a new, voluntary social insurance program to help people insure against the high costs of long-term care. Americans would pay a premium of roughly $65 per month, although the Congressional Budget Office has said the premium could end up being as much as $110 a month — still far less than the typical cost of private long-term care insurance. After participants had contributed for at least five years, they would be eligible for a benefit of not less than $50 a day to cover long-term care costs.

While the benefit is modest compared to the average cost of nursing home care, it could be used instead to pay for a range of services that would help people remain in their homes. All working Americans would automatically be enrolled in Kennedy’s plan, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, but they could choose to opt out.  Students and the poor would pay only $5 a month.

In a letter to Kennedy, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that President Obama considers the long-term care program an “innovative” idea that should be “part of health reform.”

“Enactment of this important legislation would expand resources available to individuals and families to purchase long-term services and supports to enable them to remain in their own homes in the community,” wrote Sebelius.

For many middle-income Americans, the Kennedy plan could be just enough to allow them to stay at home or to afford assisted living care. Medicaid “waiver” programs that offer home health services often have long waiting lists in the states that offer them. Many elderly or disabled individuals end up in nursing homes at government expense when all they actually need is help around the house or home nurse visits.

McLaughlin & Quinn’s Law for Life attorney Jill E. Sugarman called it “a huge step in the right direction.”

For more on Sen. Kennedy’s health reform bill, click here.

For an Associated Press article on President Obama’s support for the CLASS Act, click here.

To listen to a National Public Radio report on the topic, click here.