My Comments: Politicians apparently have no earthly idea what getting old does to your finances. Of the 50 state Medicaid directors, red states and blue states, all 50 came out in opposition to the most recent attempt by Congress to repeal the ACA or ObamaCare.

None of us are willing to allow the elderly to die in the streets for lack of care. That means programs like Medicaid must be properly funded.

We can argue till the cows come home about the need for rules to prohibit unfair advantages and you’ll get my approval for such rules. There will be competing agendas but does that mean we should give up?

And somehow, these rules must be written to allow intelligent financial planning. Rules that include how to be cared for without losing your financial sanity. Gabriel Heiser’s ideas have value for all of us.

Gabriel Heiser 9/21/2017

Well-off people can easily go broke paying for sky-high nursing home care: First they deplete their own funds and then, eventually needing Medicaid, spend down nearly all the rest of their assets to qualify for that government program designed for low-income individuals.

The way to avoid this terrible situation is to put in place a Medicaid asset-protection plan early on. One powerful solution is to buy a single-premium immediate annuity, says attorney K. Gabriel Heiser, an elder care Medicaid expert, in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.

For 25 years, Heiser focused exclusively on elder law, and estate and Medicaid planning. He is author of “How to Protect Your Family’s Assets from Devastating Nursing Home Costs: Medicaid Secrets” (Phylius Press 2017-11th updated edition).

Sixty percent to 70% of nursing home patients are on Medicaid, says Heiser.

In determining eligibility, Medicaid differentiates sharply between “assets” and “income.” The potential Medicaid recipient is permitted to have only $2,000 in assets, though they can still receive certain income under certain circumstances.

In the interview, Heiser discusses a number of techniques — all of them legal — to shelter or reduce assets to qualify for nursing-home Medicaid.

One of the best, he says, is a so-called Medicaid-Friendly annuity, which essentially converts “countable” assets into income, which is exempt.

The average cost of nursing home care is $92,000 a year and much higher in New York and Hawaii, among other states. The average stay is two-and-a-half to three years. Care for a person with Alzheimer’s disease in a locked unit can come to more than $450,000 annually and is typically for a period of at least five years, Heiser says.

Though Medicaid wasn’t created for middle-class people “to pass their money on to their children at taxpayers’ expense,” Heiser writes, he reasons that it makes sense and isn’t unethical to “avail yourself of the laws” in order to minimize expenditures on nursing home care and indeed “pass those savings on to your children.”

Most folks make the mistake of waiting too long to plan for asset protection, says Heiser. They should begin at the first sign that their spouse, parent or sibling likely will need nursing home care.

Heiser was formerly chair of the estate planning committee of the Massachusetts Bar Association and an adjunct professor of the College for Financial Planning at David Lipscomb University. A professional version of his book, “Medicaid Planning: From A to Z,” is directed at attorneys, financial advisors and CPAs.

ThinkAdvisor recently spoke with the semi-retired Heiser, 68, on the phone from home in San Miguel Allende, Mexico. He revealed some of his Medicaid secrets and how they can help clients shelter their assets. Here are highlights:

THINKADVISOR: What’s critical to know about Medicaid?

GABRIEL HEISER: To qualify, you can’t have more than $2,000 in Medicaid-countable assets. So if you have cash in the bank or any other assets that aren’t on the exempt list, they’ll count toward the $2,000. That’s not a very high amount — but the point of Medicaid is that it’s supposed to cover the poor.

You write that hiding money and not reporting an asset on a Medicaid application is fraud.

Yes, fraud against the government. You’ll be disqualified for Medicaid, and there are also criminal penalties.

What about having income?

You can still qualify if you have, say, pension income. But there’s a cap of $2,205 a month for Medicaid recipients. However, some states have a rule that if your income is over that figure, you can direct your Social Security or pension into a trust — a Miller Trust, also known as a Qualified Income Trust.

The trustee pays the money to the nursing home, and Medicaid pays the difference. Typically, the bills are going to be more than $2,000 a month. So even though you have income over the cap, you can still qualify by setting up that trust.

Note: there are three more pages of Gabriel Heiser’s words of wisdom on this topic. To read the rest, click HERE.