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 & Assets (long!)
Comments (13)is there a big difference between the medical coverage provided under Medicare vs Medicaid? Medicare is available, at age 65, to those who paid into the Medicare system. You are eligible for premium-free Part A if you are age 65 or older and you or your spouse worked and paid Medicare taxes for at least 10 years. Some people aren't in the Medicare system and therefore aren't eligible without certain exceptions. Though it pays for medical expenses, etc., it does not pay for nursing homes. Medicaid, basically, pays for the medical care, including medicaid accepting nursing homes or long term care facilities, for those who can't afford it. For the purposes of this discission - and others on the same topic in the past... it often comes down to differing camps of opinions, ie. those who can pay but don't want to vs those who cannot pay. Sometimes it's a little difficult to discuss spenddowns in anticipation of applying for Medicaid without sounding like one is making a judgment. Who in their right mind wants to work their whole life then have to spend the retirement nest egg for nursing home care instead of leaving legacies to children or leaving a spouse well provided for - but those who have assets and can pay should be "private pay" residents of nursing homes. My Father, mercifully, got his wish to die at home, but my Mother spent the last year of her life in a nursing home as a private pay resident. And why? Because she could afford it and it was the right thing to do. Many people who have assets and could well pay for their last years in nursing homes, etc. want to protect inheritances for children - or whatever- and find ways of impoverishing themselves by giving all their assets away. Once the estate is given away, they apply for Medicaid. Medicaid is well aware of this and should some unreasonable transfers of wealth and assets occur during the established 5 year lookback period, Medicaid will be withheld or reduced until those assets are made up - and the likely source for Medicaid to recoup these assets is from the person(s) to whom they were transferred....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 MoreMy husband is addicted to spending
Comments (12)Thanks to all for your thoughtful and heartfelt responses. I think I already knew that at least one of us needed counseling; maybe it took hearing it from "strangers" to finally make the deicision to do so. I control the checkbook, pay the bills, etc. I show him each month how much our regular expenses are in a vain attempt to get him to realize that we are spending more than he brings in each month. While he seems to understand the concept of income vs. outgo, it makes no difference to his spending. He keeps telling me that when "we" retire, his air force pension and 401(k) from his workplace, plus social security, will give us plenty of money. I've run the numbers, and it's true - IF he can stop spending so much! It was also very helpful to hear someone say I was being an "enabling doormat". I always knew I was being a doormat, but the addition of the word "enabling" was startling - and so true. Gives me more incentive than ever. Even when you understand the reasons behind someone else's addition (and I understand very well why he does this), it's hard to deal with. Thanks again to all!...See MoreHe mentions physical assets of other women..
Comments (27)My sympathies to you, Cube... yah, we all have a tendency to sell our souls to the devil for companionship, what the heck, that's how things work.. i think some men are encouraged by other men that this is cool way of talking.. (maybe to themselves, but they forgot we don't care to hear their editorial comments!)... my ex had a mild form of the same and he was SHOCKED that a colleague had gently ribbed him for being a sexist becuase he didn't think he was.... so if more guys would nudge each other to say "hey, that's NOT cool".. maybe it would happen less.. I get annoyed if I'm talking to a man and his eyes are roaming to every woman who is passing.... message I get is taht they are not listening to me... sometimes I will say something like "is everything ok? you seem distracted"... it's rude behavior.... a small amount of it, ok, i can also be distracted by things passing in the foreground, but it can get really distracting if you are trying to talk to someone who is totally distracted! The way I once handled a situation -- I had been told that if I was as pretty as this particular celebrity, then my guy would have bought me ten of the same type of cute baseball hat as she was wearing... I was shocked... I told him I expected the hat in the mail ASAP.... he never made another such remark again.. (it never worked out between us....and I don't feel bad about it)....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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