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eguillot Answer this Question why would a millionaire (example Joe Kennedy while alive) put $500 Million in Trusts if not to evade accountable assets? Then who paid for his care, physically at that time he was a mess & under care.
Why worry,we are helpless! I expect drastic changes in Medicare & Medicaid to shore up Obama Care because Young People aren't applying & they are needed to provide the Dollars for it's success, Medicare & Medicaid can't carry Obama Care as it's presently structured.
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The trusts paid for his care. You have no idea how trusts work, do you? When you set things up in a family trust, such as the Kennedy family trust, or even a smaller one, such as the one my father set up, all assets go into the trust. It is NOT to evade accountability, it is for ease of transfer to heirs. No probate. Upon submitting a death certificate, the trust immediately goes to the beneficiary, or, depending on how it was set up, can simply carry on with the new trustee.

All of my mother's bills are paid from a "checking account" within her trust, she has a credit and debit card on that account

Do you really think that a family with $500,000,000 would allow their patriarch to go to a lousy nursing home in a shared room where he would be subjected to commoners? You can bet that old Joe Kennedy got the best of everything. Putting your money in a trust is something that every rich family does - it doesn't mean that it leaves them without access to the money. If it did, they wouldn't do it.
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Reading the posts here, most people do not plan far enough in advance. Then they sell the parents' home and split up the money, thinking that is their "inheritance". They spend all the money. They think Medicaid will happily pay for a nursing home, because all the money is gone. They are wrong.
Effective in 2011, NY law allows Medicaid to go after the Trusts, too! So the Irrevocable Trust your mom set up in 1996, so she can "leave something to the kids" no longer saved when she goes into a nursing home. For every solution found to protect assets, the legislature enacts a law to expose those assets to collection.
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pamstegman - I'm not sure how medicaid works, but I know when looking at assets to buy the home we're in now, the trust was taken into account. I would assume that medicaid would also take into account any sizable trusts as well. My mother will not go into a nursing home as a recipient of medicaid until and unless she runs out of all the money we have. That means all the money/assets in the trust. Not likely to happen, as we intend to take care of her at home as long as humanly (and humanely) possible.
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dogabone comments while written in a rather simple manner rings true in many respects. The problem appears that her language, which comes from her heart appears to upset some readers. If she had used terms such a using irrevocable trusts, spousal transfers, and other estate planning financial instruments to shield assets (money) from Medicaid would the outcry have been so loud?. The problem is that these financial planning tools are not normally available to middle and low income Americans. The wealthy have access to high priced attorneys so that their assets are protected. Dogabone stated that millionaires have qualified for Medicaid and some commentators suggested that they need to be reported, I found a research study conducted by the Washington State social services which confirmed that people with $1MM in assets were in fact able to qualify for benefits by "managing " their assets rather than spending down. http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oai-09-88-01340.pdf is the URL where the published study can be found.
There is a double standard in who get benefits, but we all know that there is a different set of rule for the wealthy who have access to great legal and financial planning advice. The wealthy will never be required to spend down all of their asset, only the poor.
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I am totally and thoroughly repulsed by Dogabone's attitude of irresponsibility, which I think is actually his/her method of trolling and provoking intense emotional responses.

She/he's clearly not qualified to advise anyone on anything.

I've just reported her/him to the Admins. Hopefully they'll block this nutcase who seems to delight in provoking others with ridiculous so-called "advice."
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Does anyone offhand have the e-mail, phone or other contact information for the Medicaid Fraud Department? I can search for it, but if someone has it handy, please PM me. I think Dogabone needs an attitude adjustment.
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Wouldn't work anyway. The Medicaid rules for gifts are different than the IRS rules. Freezers are the first place burglars look for money and jewelry. Maybe they'll take the tasty rib eyes, too. And if 3 people have access to the safe deposit box that contains unreported money, who is going to report anyone if it disappears?

I don't worry about dogabone, since he's really GOATabone. Strange how goats can generate more responses than legitimate members.
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dedicatedson - biggest problem with the article is that it is from MARCH, 1989!
In 1989, the look-back period was 2 years and not required to be done for the state to approve an application.

As such, it really can only be viewed as a quaint bit of history. Since 2005, the fed's have pretty well required of the states that in order to be able to participate in Medicaid that a document based 5 year look back be done with transfer penalty inquiries sent out based on the review. Also now the NH routinely vet the application themselves to determine IF they will accept the resident as "Medicaid Pending". The NH can now turn down an applicant to be "Medicaid Pending", which could not be done in the past. Now does the individual applicant turn in 5 years worth of documents? Probably not - for my mom it was 3 years & 6 months of the financials she had to get and provide to accompany her application. But the state could have asked for 5 full years. Now the state did run a 5 year search on all real property tied to her name. I would imagine this is just routinely done on all applicants and is just a couple of keystrokes to be done by the state as all this information comes from the local tax assessor and then dovetailed into the states database. Back in 1989, I bet most of this was all entered by hand. Totally different situation now in 2014. Most of the time for applications now, I bet, nothing comes up to red flag the application (and send out a transfer penalty inquiry letter), so the applicant never knows it was done either.

Also it's my belief that the zip code & census tract of the applicant makes a difference in the review. The initial caseworker (at least for my mom) was local and knows the area. They know what areas are considered wealthier or more affluent, it's my belief that applications from those areas are given a bit more of an exacting review. Like for my mom, if you live in the 78209 you probably have more income & assets and therefore more possibility of moving $$ about than one who lived in 78201. So the 78209 app's get more scrutiny.

There are many many ways to plan for long term care costs. But you have to be open-minded to planning and investing. Not hiding it in the freezer! For the generationally wealthy (the 90%), they grow up in an environment that you just do not go it alone. You grow up with your parents and aunt's & uncles who talk with advisors, brokers, attorney's, you actively listen to what others do. For those who are middle income, there is no reason why we cannot do what the generationally wealthy do and go out there and learn what is available and then act on it.
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This original post is one reason I find this site somewhat uncomfortable. IT IS NOT OKAY TO HIDE ASSETS FROM MEDICAID SO I CAN PAY FOR YOUR LOVED ONE'S CARE!!

Parents save all their LIVES for a rainy day, and when it starts pouring outside, their selfish heirs try to find a way to keep it all for themselves.

Makes me ill.
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It is the only post of its kind I've seen here. And dogabone is not a consistent member. He has come in very few times to stir controversy. I don't take him seriously.
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Why is everyone so upset with DOGABONE?
Freezer is the first place were crooks look . LOL
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Ask my stepbrother. He successfully gifted all his mother's assets for five years and two weeks after the look back period was over, he sued to remove me as executor of my father's estate and successfully sued for the remaining half of the house funds. Greedy bastard.
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I was always curious about this because I know there's a gift tax and an estate tax. Over a certain amount gifted in a lifetime, if you pass away and your will and everything in it totals more than 5 million, etc*

Wondered if it was possible to report losses by various means (gambling being one of them) and then buy gold bullion bars over 10, 20, 30+ years in such a way that your "losses" from gambling go directly towards purchasing gold bullion to store away without it being accounted for when you die

I thought that might make it so you can dodge the estate tax or gift tax (assuming your entire estate is worth well over the bare minimum limit) would that be a feasible means to hide a couple million dollars if you decided to do it over the course of 10-30+ years
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Btw your wrong about safety deposit boxes and they're not good for keeping it from being known
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Thanks for the shared information. I should not expect my medicaid application to be approved.
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She has no money or assets other than the social security check and retirement check that goes directly to the assisted living facility. She actually doesn’t have enough, but the owners let her stay. I feel hopeless. Daughter and POA.
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My mom has no assets. Somebody please help me.
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I need help paying her meds. About $311 a month. Her other daughter and son will not help out. I am a retired teacher and work part time to pay for the meds.
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I am her POA. one reason why is because the others can’t even manage their finances. Help
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Then...go help her get a Medicaid application filed.

But...please do not think that committing fraud is a good plan....the title on this thread implies that fraud is OK....
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Cbbranch, please start a new thread to ask your question. This one is four years old and is on a different topic. You'll get better responses if you start fresh.
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People here calling it fraud, look.
When you've spent 4-5 years out of a job taking care of somebody, and then all their assets go to a nursing home. a place that's generally understaffed where they keep patients drugged up to subdue them.
Pay the workers $8-13 an hour.
And THEN, on top of that the nursing home is charging $8-10k a month, knowing damn well that Medicaid is probably only paying that nursing home $2-3k a month after the assets run out.

one of the only billionaires in my state, runs nursing homes and banks. But the nursing homes are just straight income. And get this, he makes his employees at his nursing home sign up with his bank for direct deposit. No lie.

Beyond that, the guy actually got legislation passed this year, in the state, that stipulates that any nursing home abuse or neglect case must go in front of a panel of "experts" before it goes to court.

Calling protecting your families hard earned money, "fraud" and thinking of it as leaving it on the taxpayers back is wrong in this case folks.
I know good and well my grandfather made a trust specifically to protect assets from nursing homes, unfortunately it wasn't irrevocable and/or the attorney that wrote it up wasn't very good.

It's not fraud to try to keep your families assets in your family, when you've been taking care of your loved one for a long period of time.
BUT, you have corporations and government agencies that basically make it out that way so that they can make money and/or protect their own assets.

Meanwhile, somebody like me that's worn themselves down taking care of a family member for years loses everything and ends up dying from cancer or a heart attack because nobody even tries to understand what in the world is really going on here.

A nursing home is a BUSINESS. First and foremost. Just because they get money from Medicaid doesn't make them some noble institution. It just means they have more clout, more ways, to manipulate things in their favor once they have that relationship with the government.

You all know good and well the government does NOT pay those nursing homes what a regular person would be charged. Medicaid probably only pays them
$2-3k a month.

Somebody explain that to me.
Tell me how that isn't fraud.
Simply because the government doesn't define it as such?
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Wonder how he knew I was thinking about starting a large scale business lol
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I don't know but a friend recieved a 21000 settlement from a car acct. She lost her ssi and Medicaid until she spends down ...months later she got Medicaid back, this is in r.i...The person from the state said there was a new program through the obarmacare that it didn't matter what you have in the bank as long as you don't have a weekly/monthly income so she got the Medicaid back and also as far as foodstamps they told her they only consider the month she got the money in then after that they don't care either, so she didn't lose food stamps...Now that she finally spent down the money, she should be getting her ssi check back in a month...
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I've been reading some of the responses to hiding money to get Medicare. I have a story. I worked all my life and raised 4 children. I worked in a factory and never got food stamps or anything. I became disabled at 57 . We had always lived paycheck to paycheck.While waiting to be approved for disability it became hard to get my meds. What little saving went, I filled out the papers for help, Medicaid or anything. I was denined any help and was told each month to go to churches and ask for help. I cried because this was not something I could do. I had withdrew my retirement from my work place and played taxes on it. I got a total of 10, 000 for the 30 yrs I had worked there. I used this to buy what meds I felt most important, pd Dr bills. The day I was approved for disability I had 250.00 left , my car was up for sale, I was on the verge of giving up life. As you probably figured out I lived in a small town. By doing so you know a lot of the people. There were some who stayed home , never worked, but got help with food stamps most of their lives. Because I went to work everyday, even days when I felt so bad and worked anytime they could use me and supported my family there was no help for me. I waited to get my meds one day the woman in front got 5, cost of around 20.00 . My turn ,no Mediciade my cost was 150.00 for 2 . I got one and had to leave the other. I even wrote the governor, stated because I was to old to get pregnant, a USA citizen and because I had worked to support my family I was penalized . He replied he was sorry. I asked that they pull records in our town and check closely on those receiving help. That 50 percent or more was qualified. This did not happen. One lady knew the social worker well and she fudged on the paper work for her. A cousin same age never worked , no children, enjoyed life while I worked daily in a factory, is better off than me. She gets a S S I check be caused she never paid any social in. She gets food stamps , low income housing, free transportation to doctors, free cell phone, doesn't have to pay for Medicare and gets Medicare too. She always doesn't have to pay for anything. I would have better off if I hadn't worked. This is a great injustice in my eyes. We now have a little saving from where my husband retired. He has alhizermers and I'm in bad health. I can't get no help. If I don't try to take care of him and he goes to a NH we will lose what little we have. We worked hard all of our lives, our home is just a middle class home, we never had a lot. But now it looks like we may lose it. The system is not right, a man I know hasn't worked in 20 yrs, has a son he raises, he gets food stamps,, help paying his heating bills, both get medicaid and yes a free phone. He even told the Social Worker he didn't want a job. He does odd Hobbs and generates 40.00 weekly. All the people going to work every day is supporting him and others like him. The system is at fault. People that live off of others should have to earn the free ride. If able they should have to do community work or something. Maybe mowing yrs for seniors or something. I know how the lady feels about wanting to hide what little money they have. As stated I'm from a small town and see so many getting benefits that shouldn't be eligible. This is probably true in all towns. If they would check out each person to make sure of their application, the money saved might could help people like me to at least get a little help in their last days. So I feel that if I get where I can't manage my husband care and the NH is the only thing left, I would hide what little we have from the government so I would have it to take of my needs. I'm speaking from a been there situation where I was honest in filing for any kind of help I could get only to be denied and struggled so hard.
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