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Sometimes I may sound like an enemy of the government Medicaid program which helps people pay for nursing home care. Actually, that’s not so. Medicaid, since its creation in the 1960s, has created “the best of times” for those who need long-term nursing home care. Without it, virtually

everyone in a nursing home would be completely broke, nursing homes would still be the dark, depressing places they used to be in the “Worst of Times” when there was no funding but the residents’ life savings and income to pay for the care they provided. The advent of today’s bright, modern, cheery nursing homes began with Medicaid.

Medicaid is a God-send for those needing nursing home care. The Medicaid law really has a financial heart; it does not require family impoverishment before getting Medicaid. The shortcoming of the system (which creates the way I make my living) is that it is hard to learn what the law permits, and harder yet properly to utilize what the law permits to preserve life savings and real estate.

Let’s look at some of the misconceptions of what the law demands and what, if done properly, the law actually allows:

∫ Myth: You have to spend all of your money until you are poor paying for nursing home care before you can qualify for Medicaid.

∫ Fact: By carefully following the Medicaid rules, you can keep substantial assets and qualify for Medicaid. People I’ve worked with have saved as much as several hundred thousand dollars of life savings and qualified for Medicaid.

∫ Myth: Medicaid will take your home.

∫ Fact: You need not lose your home to Medicaid. If you are married, Medicaid will not touch your home as long as your spouse lives there. In West Virginia (but not Ohio) you may keep your home for the rest of your life even if you are single. One of the important steps in the Medicaid plans I help people design includes protecting the home so it never has to be used to pay for your nursing home care while you are alive or to reimburse Medicaid after you die.

∫ Myth: Medicaid will take my car.

∫ Fact: Medicaid will allow you to keep your primary vehicle, although additional vehicles will count as part of your life savings. You even can get a new car for your spouse to drive. The rules allow you to arrange the ownership of the car so that Medicaid can’t reach it to recoup its money after you die.

∫ Myth: My husband owns all of our assets and if he has to spend all his assets on his nursing home, I will be penniless when he goes to the nursing home.

∫ Fact: Medicaid allows the healthier spouse who is still at home to keep half of the couple’s assets as her nest-egg for the future. If her half is less than $31,584 she can keep at least $31,584 even if that amount is more than half. There is a ceiling of $157,920 on her half. Many of my clients are able to use a technique which enables a spouse whose half is less than the ceiling actually to increase her half to the maximum ceiling amount.

In addition, there are ways to save the nursing home spouse’s share of the couple’s life savings to benefit the at home spouse.

In the case of an unmarried nursing home resident, we can save and protect approximately 50% to 66% of the life savings making him too rich for Medicaid.

The saddest cases I encounter are the folks who call me after they have spent their life savings paying for care and then want to know what to do. Big as its heart is, Medicaid will not give back the money folks spent on their nursing home care that they could have saved, if they had just known how to do it.

Medicaid expects that those who plan will abide by the law, which is complex. Penalties for violating the law are severe and, under certain circumstances, are criminal. Nevertheless, even though we must comply strictly with the law, we don’t have to pay any more than the law requires.

Congress and the State made the rules; as long as the game is played according to their rules, no more is expected. In this field knowing what the law requires and allows is essential. Medicaid planning is not a “do it yourself undertaking.” You will need an experienced guide.

Nobody knows what Medicaid will be like in the future, after the billions of dollars being cut by the “big, beautiful bill,” but this is how it is now.

When facing nursing home care, ask for competent help from an Elder Law Attorney before it is too late; pay only what the law requires. After all, it’s your life savings you are saving! Then, you or your spouse and family can enjoy “the best of times”.

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Gerald W. Townsend is a partner in the Elder law firm of Fluharty & Townsend, Parkersburg, WV. His practice focuses upon meeting the legal needs of Seniors in West Virginia, with special emphasis upon protecting the home and life savings from the cost of nursing home care. He can be reached at jtownsend@fntlawoffices.com