This article was produced by the Financial Planning Association, the membership organization for the financial planning community, and is provided by Al Benelli, CFP, a local member of FPA.

Current estimates from AARP put the annual cost of a nursing home at a national average of $78,000.

Older Americans, struggling to reassemble their retirement plans from the worst economic downturn in 70 years, may be ignoring the potentially most devastating threat to their plans: the spiraling cost of long-term care.

On Jan. 1, 2010, some important provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 went into effect to help pay for those costs. Individuals no longer have to pay federal income tax on the proceeds from an annuity used to pay for long-term care coverage.

That means that chronically ill or disabled people will no longer have to rely on their own private long-term care policies or Medicaid to pay for costs related to long-term care. The change is spurring the creation of hybrid deferred annuity policies that also carry long-term care coverage. These products allow policyholders to use the proceeds for LTC coverage, for income or for both. The proceeds that went to pay for long-term care costs for the policyholder would not be subject to federal tax.

Find out more Long Term Care News on the PPA News Network