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Which is why most of the people in the world for most of human history have cared for their parents themselves. Being able to hire other people to take care of your own parents is something for rich people, who have servants, not ordinary people.
Americans are so spoiled.
This is not true at all. People did not live as long back then, and both spouses didn't have to work back then. Today as people get older and older, they require more and more specialized care and many times a spouse of child cannot do it without help, for the safety of both.
I have to work. My mom needs someone there 24 hours. Medicaid will not pay for home nursing and medical care, however they will pay thousands a month for her to be in assisted living, so that's where she is.
I'm an OT, and we have to convince people all the time they can no longer care for their loved one at home (like the wife we got as a patient when she broke her collarbone trying to lift her 6'3" husband with advanced Parkinson's up to get him to the bathroom. We had her husband as a patient many times, and could see this coming a mile away. However partially due to judgemental crap like you spew above, she felt too guilty to until she herself got hurt. You don't know what you're talking about.
Which is why most of the people in the world for most of human history have cared for their parents themselves. Being able to hire other people to take care of your own parents is something for rich people, who have servants, not ordinary people.
Americans are so spoiled.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
This is not true at all. People did not live as long back then, and both spouses didn't have to work back then. Today as people get older and older, they require more and more specialized care and many times a spouse of child cannot do it without help, for the safety of both.
I have to work. My mom needs someone there 24 hours. Medicaid will not pay for home nursing and medical care, however they will pay thousands a month for her to be in assisted living, so that's where she is.
I'm an OT, and we have to convince people all the time they can no longer care for their loved one at home (like the wife we got as a patient when she broke her collarbone trying to lift her 6'3" husband with advanced Parkinson's up to get him to the bathroom. We had her husband as a patient many times, and could see this coming a mile away. However partially due to judgemental crap like you spew above, she felt too guilty to until she herself got hurt. You don't know what you're talking about.
My elder care attorney said that Medicaid would investigate every single check that either my husband or I wrote for $500 or above, for the last five years. (Some posters on CD have started other figures, "over $1,000" and "over $900" so it must vary by state)
Yes, it varies by state.
And, NYChistorygal, I'm really surprised that the Medicaid look back has not requested the money that they gave the grandchildren for college back (or penalized them for that amount of money). My elder care attorney said that was clearly something that would be "against the rules" if you wanted to receive Medicaid. In our case, we did not have any money to give to our children or grandchildren, as we could barely support ourselves, but it was still something that the attorney told us.
That may be why she has to pay part of it. They are not covering all. We are, already, in the process of recertifying. I wonder if Mom's payment will decrease as her bank accounts do.
For my part, I just plan to commit suicide when the time comes. Like the AP, our retirement savings were wiped out due to '08 market crash, unemployment ---caught in the too-old-to-work-too-young-to-retire trap, much of our savings went for Cobra, mortgage, etc, we have no family except two adopted kids we are estranged from.
I feel that way too and at this point it's my "plan" when I can't enjoy life anymore.
My parents have said this to me for years but now that they are there I can't see it. My dad can hardly walk and has moderate dementia and mom lost most of the use of her left hand after a nasty broken wrist that didn't heal well. She wants to keep taking care of my dad but I don't know if she can much longer, and I'm not sure where she's headed now either. It's one thing to "talk the talk" when your of sound mind and body, but it's another to even plan it out when you're unable to get around and can't think straight. I don't WANT them to do that anyway so I hope I'm not just fooling myself!
My elder care attorney said that Medicaid would investigate every single check that either my husband or I wrote for $500 or above, for the last five years. (Some posters on CD have started other figures, "over $1,000" and "over $900" so it must vary by state)
And, NYChistorygal, I'm really surprised that the Medicaid look back has not requested the money that they gave the grandchildren for college back (or penalized them for that amount of money). My elder care attorney said that was clearly something that would be "against the rules" if you wanted to receive Medicaid. In our case, we did not have any money to give to our children or grandchildren, as we could barely support ourselves, but it was still something that the attorney told us.
I know another poster on this site talked about the fact that spending/gifts were okay during the spendown if it followed the previous pattern of the person's life.
So if you routinely gave a child $250 a month to help with bills before the spend down period - and you continued to do that through spend down - it would potentially be okay (at least in the state that poster was in).
But if you never gave your child any money and suddenly started making large transfers (or transferring real estate) it would be looked at as an attempt to hide assets.
I had never heard that - so I thought that was actually pretty generous. As other's have said - likely differs state to state. But apparently some states are pretty reasonable.
I know another poster on this site talked about the fact that spending/gifts were okay during the spendown if it followed the previous pattern of the person's life.
So if you routinely gave a child $250 a month to help with bills before the spend down period - and you continued to do that through spend down - it would potentially be okay (at least in the state that poster was in).
But if you never gave your child any money and suddenly started making large transfers (or transferring real estate) it would be looked at as an attempt to hide assets.
I had never heard that - so I thought that was actually pretty generous. As other's have said - likely differs state to state. But apparently some states are pretty reasonable.
Yes, that is what the attorney said was true in our state. But she did caution that even that was not always approved by Medicaid. I mentioned to our attorney about my friend & spouse who gave each grandchild $1,000 on their birthday (for their college fund) and had done that since their first grandchild was born 15 years earlier and she said that Medicaid probably would not ask for that money back/penalize them for spending that money (money given during the five year look-back).
But, in our case (not that we have the money) if we started giving our baby & 3 year old grandchildren $1,000 (even $500 in our state) on each birthday, during the five year look back. It would definitely be penalized as part of an illegal spend down.
And, they can get pretty picky, too. When my elderly aunt started in Medicaid in my state, and her house & its contents needed to be sold, we were told that if we had a garage sale all of the proceeds would need to be given to the state (and of course the money from the sale of the house, too). Now, my aunt could give away things in her house to nieces & nephews & others (I have Grandma's cookie jar) but technically if that cookie jar was sold for $5 Medicaid would get that $5. Now, they do have rules for giving away things of value in a house (probably the $500 limit), but my aunt did not have anything of value so it did not matter in her case.
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Very well said!
