Why we raced a Tuk Tuk across India?

In honor of my late grandfather, we raised $10,500 for Hilarity for Charity to help families face the cost of eldercare

My Grandfather: Albert Krasnoff

After climbing Kilimanjaro, I told myself I would never do one of these adventures again unless it was as a platform to raise money for charity. I was able to honor my late grandfather in partnership with Hilarity for Charity, the leading charity accelerating progress in Alzheimer’s care, support, and research. To do our part, my teammates Prashant Fonseka, and Sebastien Park raced a Tuk-Tuk the entire length of India- a 20 days and 2500+ miles overland across the subcontinent from Trivandrum through Jaislemar to Delhi.

Eldercare is not covered by health insurance.

The out of pocket costs for eldercare today are over $90b in the US. The average cost burden for eldercare in the US is $350,000 per person and is increasing in price at double the rate of inflation and has been for the last 15 years. Within the total market, Alzheimer’s accounts for nearly 70% of every dollar spent on eldercare, and there is no solution in sight for the nearly 6 million Americans battling this disease. Alzheimer’s is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. and is growing at 14% year-over-year.

Source: Medical care is only eclipsed by college/university and healthcare expenses covered by insurance

Not only is eldercare not covered by health insurance, but also Medicare isn’t there to step in to solve the problem. Medicare only covers 100 days of care, but unfortunately, the average person needs care for 2.5 years of care, over 9x as much. My grandfather survived for five years with advanced Alzheimer’s. He was in the 15% minority that lives longer than 2.5 years in memory care, and today there is no product to help account for that time difference. There is no solution in sight for the nearly millions of American families facing Alzheimer’s.

Today’s solutions are lackluster at best. The default solution in Long Term Care (LTC) insurance has fallen off precipitously in the last few years because it is an awful product. LTC policies are expensive and do not solve the core problem for families financial gaps. They force people to make critical decisions 30+ years ahead of when they need to exercise a policy, and it leaves to costly mismatches when it counts:

1. Exemption period: Once you qualify for LTC, families are still out of pocket for a predetermined time when families need financial support the most
2. Billing Timing Mismatch: Even though individuals may have a sizeable gross dollar amount in their policy, their policy puts limits on how much people can claim at a daily maximum. Because healthcare facilities bill monthly, it forces families to pay additional out of pocket costs to cover the gap.

Financing this today is grim:

1. The affluent, in-home care can cost as much as $350,000 per year

2. The 40% of Americans with less than $400 in their bank account, there is little solution beyond charity

3. The middle class is left to fend for itself. They can’t afford the expensive LTC policies, so they lean towards trying to qualify for inadequate Medicare coverage. Unfortunately, to qualify individuals need to be below the poverty line (i.e., less than $2,000 in total assets) for more than five years. No one knows how to do this correctly, and if you do this part incorrectly, the government claws back all your assets.

In my humble opinion, without a resolution this is the next financial crisis in the US. LTC just brought down GE, as famous whistleblower Harry Markopolos just exposed. With the rising cost of elder care and an aging baby boomer population, we are ripe for an implosion. The $30T transfer of wealth to millennials is often talked about in the press, but in today’s America at least $2.5T of that is set to be absorbed into eldercare over the next ten years alone.

Keep an eye out for future announcements on our work to solve this macroeconomic problem.

Thank you for reading!

N