Sticker shock.

Maybe it's just me, but long-term care seems awfully expensive. I'm being a little facetious. I know the costs of long-term care and I know the reasons for them - it's my job. I had to wonder, though, what went through the minds of Baby Boomers (and immediate pre-Boomers, like myself) if they happened to peruse Time Magazine's August 30 articles "Taking Care of Our Aging Parents" and "Elder Care: Making the Right Choice."

For once, Time's editorial treatment of long-term care didn't leave me feeling nauseated and outraged, both for residents and for decent owner/operators. The magazine's approach this time was quite positive, including resident quotes such as "I love living here" and "Here I get all the attention I need." That's possibly because the "here" in question was an assisted living facility, not a nursing home. Assisted living is still too bright and shiny to provoke profoundly negative press, and long may it stay that way.

I guess what threw me, though, were some of the prices quoted for the various levels of care: $1,200 to $2,000 a month for congregate care, which "can cost much more"; a $2,000-a-month average for assisted living; $1,500 to $5,000 a month for continuing care facilities; and, of course, an average of nearly $50,000 a year for nursing homes. Let us not overlook the studio apartments selling for $48,500; the $3,500-a-month "residence for the elderly" in California; the $2,850- to $4,800-a-month units at the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility in Glen Cove, New York - and I won't even go into the prices quoted for the villas, single-level fourplexes and customized estate homes mentioned, except to say perhaps even Bill Gates would notice. (OK, probably he wouldn't.)

I pretended, as I read this, that I was a Boomer encountering this information for the first time, which as Time points out, more and more in fact are. I went through the usual litany of expenses this age group faces - the house, the (often elderly) cars, college tuition, again the house (which I don't mind mentioning twice - my house needs a lot of work). I also thought about those retirement plans that are supposed to provide us with some sort of cushion; they appear to be dwindling these days, or else are pegged to a stock market that seems too good to be true. I asked myself, in the words of the old commercial, "Where's the beef?."

Then I remembered that my 83-year-old mom owns her own home. Good news! And then I remembered (revealing my humble origins) that what she would get for it would cover a little over a year's worth of assisted living.

How many Boomers are roughly in this same boat? What will happen when the truth dawns on them?

Time's articles might have advanced the date when we start getting some answers. I can't wait. And, if I know my friends who provide long-term care, neither can they.