I've been on both ends of this.   My mother had a stroke and required
care for three years before she died.   We paid for it.   My mother was
reasonably prudent and indeed she had a small four room house in
Florida,  which we sold after she died for $40,000.  There was no way
she could have accumulated enough money to pay for nursing room care,
and selling the house would have paid for about one year at the time.
Instead, since the only thing she could communicate was that she didn't
want to be in a nursing home, we hired someone to take care of her in
her own house, which was a bit less expensive than a nursing home, but
not much.  My wife's grandmother, who was quite wealthy when she was 60
lived to almost 105 and she almost ran out of money.  If she had lived a
couple of year longer, we would have had to pay for her care, which
would have put a big dent into what we had available for our own old
age.   Without LBJ's "socialistic" Medicare, we would have been
bankrupted trying to pay for medical care for my mother and my wife's
gandmother.

I have vowed never to rely on my children to pay for my care, but if one
of us lives long enough, I don't know if I can manage it.   I have long
term care insurance, which costs a fortune, but it pays only part of the
cost.   Most ordinary people just can't manage to save enough money to
pay for their medical care in old age.   The "lucky" ones die quickly at
relatively low cost.  Most have chronic long term problems and without
Medicare they would probably just go without.   Many old people have to
choose between medication and groceries.

Of course, one can always come up with example where relatively well to
do people take advantage of the system.  But that is not reality for
most people.  In your father-in-law's case, if he lives long enough, or
if his wife needs similar care, you may find them coming to their
children.  Of course, the government doesn't pay anything for long term
care for anyone, so they are no different in this respect than anyone else.

It is no different now than it has always been.  Rich people have always
had way of shielding their wealth.  Few ordinary people can put aside
enough money to pay for long term care.  Well, perhaps you are happy
that now things have changed and Bill Gates will be able to pass his
billions on to his children without having to pay any estate tax.   So
they at least won't have to worry about putting anything aside.

Power.