Spending down assets for Medicaid
cearbhaill (zone 6b Eastern Kentucky)
14 years ago
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cearbhaill (zone 6b Eastern Kentucky)
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agosushipup1
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Medicaid and Home Foreclosure
Comments (10)Raee - Actually, under Federal law "a person's home is an EXCLUDED resource in determining medicaid eligibility." Federal law trumps state laws when it comes to things like Medicaid...so the above statement is true in every state. HOWEVER, different states use different criteria to determine whether a person's house is their "HOME" (i.e., permanent residence) and your state may have more stringent requirements than others. In theory, if a person subjectively INTENDS to return to their home, then it remains their home - and therefore excluded from a Medicare eligibility determination regardless of how long the person is in the hospital or a nursing home AND regardless of whether the person has any real likelihood of ever really being able to return home. As long as the person says "I intend to return home someday" that should be sufficient to keep Medicaid from claiming that the house must be sold and the equity used to pay medical expenses. I'm linking to the best explanation I have been able to find online regarding how Medicaid looks at a house owned by a medicaid applicant. It is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services so should be reasonably accurate. Hope this is helpful. BTW - the eleven states that are 209(b) states mentioned in the linked article are Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Here is a link that might be useful: Medicaid's treatment of applicant's home......See MoreAnother question about depleting assets
Comments (58)Falldown, there's no need to apologize for anything. We're all sympathetic to your situation. This has been a really good discussion. You can tell from all the responses that there are several opinions and also some mis-information. It's important to think ahead about these things and do adequate research. That's why so many of us harp on getting qualified legal counsel. The Medicaid laws can be confusing, to say the least. And you need accurate information -- not 2nd or 3rd hand stories. It's also important to remember every person's situation is unique. What works for one family may not work for another. And situations change and require new perspectives. There are all kinds of options available for elder care -- aging at home with the help of aids, assisted living facilities, moving in with a family member, board & care homes, skilled nursing facilities, memory care facilities, continuing care facilities, etc. Sometimes a loved one ends up using two or more of these options. Each family struggles to make the best decisions for their loved ones. None of this is easy. But all the options require finances of some sort and all of them have legal implications. That's where planning with an attorney and financial advisor come into play....See MoreShould I liquidate assets to pay off my Credit Card debt.
Comments (5)Here goes with my financial advice. I believe it's simpler than it sounds and just requires you to get your interest rates from all of your accounts in order to make your choices. First suggestion: do as celticmoon suggests and fix that $515K first mortgage immediately! As I'm sure you're aware, the fixed variable rates of now are worse than a year or two ago, but much better than the 12-19% that they were in the past. In my opinion, fix it now and pay for any closing costs out of your savings, which is presumably earning the worst interest rate. Speaking of....what savings rate is your $15K earning? If it's less than 9% (almost a sure bet), and you have liquidatable cash in assets (which you say you do) to cover an emergency fund, then using that cash to invest in your house is giving you a 9% rate of return in your house investment, which is far better than the 3-4% of a typical savings account. If you choose not to do that, then I present my second suggestion (which I still think you should consider, w/ or w/o the $15K in the equation) DH and I just went through a similar process, although with one house, and we paid off a motorcycle and a timeshare (each at ~9%), rather than CC debt. This plan mirrors our own, with different dollar amounts: Roll both HELOCs into one and LOCK your rate up now. In my opinion, it's only going to go up. You should be able to get a much better rate with a higher consolidation balance (we got 7.5% by consolidating our two loans along with our original HELOC). 65K + 30K = 95K = 11.9% of the first house or 19% of the second house. If you keep your loan:value ratio below 20%, you'll get a better deal on rates. You may even ben required to keep it below 20%; I'm not sure. Keep thinking about that. The next option is to add the 25K of CC debt into the HELOC figure, for a total of 65K + 30K + 25K = 120K = 15% of the first house. Close that loan and pay off the CC debt immediately. You're now transferring the 8.9% of wasted CC interest into an investment into your house, in addition to the tax writeoff. The last think to consider is to stick with the 95K HELOC option and pay off the CC bill with your assets. Are any of your stock or mutual funds giving you returns better than 9%? If so, then keep them where they are and do the 120K HELOC option. If they're earning less than 9%, then I refer you back to the concept of my second paragraph. If you take your mutual fund money that is earning less than 9% and pay down your worst mortgage/HELOC/CC rate with that, you're making a huge investment in your house. Now, if you want to sit on your stocks, that's understandable. I hope that my advice not confusing, and that it's helpful to you. Lindsay...See MoreFireplace..eyesore or asset? counter/color scheme/ design help pl
Comments (28)Thanks so much to everyone. Romy718, your room is beautiful!! You do not need to wait for rugs & accessories to know that, it looks great and the colors are so pretty and work great together. Thanks for showing me. And I need to go on back to the backsplash thread and start looking up info on those tiles. I think the one that you said you were using in your own kitchen is my favorite...is it ok if our houses end up looking like cousins?! gpraceman, someday I hope to replace the slate hearth with soapstone. That was my plan for this remodel but budget got tight and we decided to just scrub down the existing slate hearth, my GC put some sort of sealer/enhancer on it; and we painted the shelf White dove same color as our trim. I'm not crazy about it, I really want a thicker distressed wood mantle, but it'll do for now. nyse2502, first, thank you Im so glad to hear you like my fireplace! This thread is from several months ago, in the meantime I had several other threads going round and round on what countertop material to choose. In the end I went away from the Sea Pearl, the Jet Mist, the Steel gray... and ended up with a Calcutta marble on my island that I love and a very plain almost solid gray Silestone on my perimeter which I am really happy with. It was a great solution for me. I got a (relatively) small little chunk of a gorgeous fragile material that I love, and then I have an extremely durable uncomplicated attractive counter everywhere else that I don't have to worry about. I admit to being totally overwhelmed and absorbed with my own reno that I haven't had tons of time to be looking at all the threads on here so maybe I missed it, but have you posted pics of your whole house reno? Sounds like a huge job, congrats on being done! I'll post a picture of my updated fireplace. This room still needs a lot of work...a rug, something on other side of fireplace, different mirror or something else on mantle, a screen for fp...but you get the idea. Thanks for all the support on this thread!...See Moreraee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agomaime
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agobuttoni_8b
14 years agolast modified: 9 years agomama22doxies
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agofranceymargaret
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agojayokie
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agojayokie
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCA Kate z9
11 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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