The problem with guardianship

At a certain point senior citizens start to lose the capability to take care of themselves. It’s a known fact of life. Most people plan for this by moving into an assisted living facility or hiring a specialist, such as a live in caretaker move in with them. But if someone doesn't plan for this, and starts to show signs of a physical or mental disability, a court and/or a judge can appoint a guardian for them. This system is designed to ensure that a person is cared for and assure that their assets and property are properly managed. Unfortunately, as comedian John Oliver highlighted in the main segment on his show on June 3rd, the system that monitors senior guardianship is incredibly flawed and is ripe for exploitation. When people don't put someone in place beforehand, the court appointed guardian might be a complete stranger who is looking to take advantage of having access to their finances and bank accounts. Some seniors get trapped in situations with guardians they don't know, who are only there to exploit them, and aren't able to get out from under them for years; and when they finally do they can be completely drained financially. John Olver provides an example about a couple that were assigned a guardian without their knowledge, who then proceeded to charge them exorbitant amounts of money for simple things like driving them to and from the court house ($780 each), or going out to purchase them stretch pants ($108). It took the couple two years to get out from under the guardian who was bleeding them dry financially. These guardians scamming their wards is not the only issue with the system. Only 12 out of 50 states require court appointed guardians to be licensed healthcare professionals. Additionally since there is no federal bureau to oversee these guardians and their wards it is up to the state and local governments to keep track of and to check with guardians about the wellbeing of the wards that they are responsible for. There is so much oversight in this system that when the state of Texas ran an audit of the elderly wards in their state, they found that 3,114 of them had passed away. As the generation of baby boomers continues to grow older there are going to be more and more senior citizens that may need someone to help care for them or to manage their finances. And although John Oliver advocates for people to take the necessary steps before hand to ensure that they have a trusted family member or friend to be in charge incase of any changes to their mental or physical help; it seems pretty apparent that protecting our senior citizens from these people should be a responsibility shared by more than just the senior citizens themselves.





Link to Oliver segment:





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG2pEffLEJo