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How much difference is there between this discussion and the desire to die broke and spend your wealth down on yourself while you can still enjoy it?
Intent.....shielding so as to leave it to your kids as opposed to spending it on yourself.
Even Medicaid has no problem during a "spend down" period if you are spending the money on yourself.
Intent.....shielding so as to leave it to your kids as opposed to spending it on yourself.
Even Medicaid has no problem during a "spend down" period if you are spending the money on yourself.
True, however aren't the consequences of taxpayers picking up your nursing home tab the same when you could have?
True, however aren't the consequences of taxpayers picking up your nursing home tab the same when you could have?
Yup!
Which leads again to the fact that it becomes a political subject like any and every other use of government monies.
While so many of those programs may have started out with good intentions, as inherent problems surfaced, rather than restructuring or eliminating them, they got band-aided up to the point where the bandaids have become little more than over-weighty wrappings hiding infected, festering sores.
Trying to time it is difficult at best. Escort and others make good points that you can *********rself in the process in multiple ways. Having a planned orderly plan for asset management makes more sense. You just have to be aware that the last five years of gifting/trust might be subject to a five year look back. If you do it over a 15 year period it's only the last five. Doing any of this in a purposeful plan is a lot different than trying to shield from Medicaid. My sense is that a pure Medicaid play more often could be the kids idea.
We have ad discussions with or sons on this topic who are also the executors of our will. They understand there is a nest egg there but there are a lot of realities down the road. Or of the biggest is the current inability to sustain Medicaid spending and the fact that many states are cutting back on Medicaid spending. As the poop starts to hit the fan the desire to shield will go on the back burner. Save or risk something you may not like.
Does one know 5 years ahead of time?
Not really and that is probably why the look back period kept going farther and farther back over the years.
I believe it started out at 12 months....then 18...up to the now 5 year period.
However, if one is of an advanced enough age and/or their health isn't A-One, it might indicate to some that a facility is pretty much a sure thing if you know you won't be taken care of by a relative.
You'd only be playing the odds that you'll not need to go before the 5years have gone by.
If you end up not needing to enter one at all, then you'll be facing the potential problems already mentioned.
There is a philosophical issue at the root of all this, and that is to what extent our money is actually our kids' money. Or in different words, how strong is our desire as parents to make sure that we leave our kids more than a negligible inheritance? One can approach this from various angles, such as whether the kids consider their potential inheritance to be theirs by right and whether they are worried about it being spent on nursing home care before they can get it. There can be a great deal of ugliness about this in some families. Another issue, already mentioned in this thread, is that of control. A lot of us would not be willing to cede control of our money to our kids. How deep is our trust in them? Some people are just control freaks in general - the financial stuff just falling under the whole attitude of control.
My mother was absolutely determined to leave me and my sister an inheritance, but she was also a control freak in general. My sister and I are not greedy and are both doing O.K., so we would have been happy to see our mother spend a little more on herself (she was a depression child and remained very frugal for a lifetime). We never did urge her to shelter her assets; we were just not concerned about the inheritance. It was nice to get it upon her death (it was not huge, but was more than negligible), and we appreciated her desire to leave us something, but we would have been O.K. with nothing.
How can anyone know five years ahead of time the approximate date that one will have to go into a nursing home? I've never heard of such a thing. I am not a lawyer, but your interpretation of the law seems bizarre. In determining the five-year look-back period, O.K., the govt. will look back five years, but I would be amazed if that includes assessing one's state of mind five years ago. I wish one of our lawyers would post on this subject. Lenora? Marcg?
A number of my neighbors assumed they would need nursing home care so
they made a preemptive strike and 'gifted their homes to their children
with a life estate. Both have gone by the five year 'look back period.
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