As Americans lived longer in the 1980s, increasingly reaching ages into the eighties and beyond, the problem of caring for the gravely ill or incapacitated elderly grew into a critical issue for many senior citizens and their families. Many Americans, faced with the loss of spouses or parents to devastating and incurable illnesses like Alzheimer's disease, learned to their dismay that neither Medicare, the government health-insurance for the elderly, nor private medical insurance covered the costs of long-term, catastrophic illness. In fact, neither Medicare nor private insurance benefits covered any nursing-home care beyond several months. After this period, the costs of a nursing home had to be paid by the individual who required it. Unfortunately, the average cost of nursing home care was $2,000 per month, and it was estimated that most people who entered nursing homes for long-term stays would exhaust their entire lifetime incomes in two...