Comment by greedo
3 years ago
"Otherwise... you spend everything, and then your kids pay."
That's incorrect. With Medicaid, the recipient is require to spend down their assets to a small amount, then Medicaid will pick up the remainder. The recipient's children aren't on the hook for anything. Of course, they won't receive any inheritance since the estate of the recipient has been drained prior to Medicaid.
This is wrong. Or rather, correct, but only in certain states, and for certain facilities.
IMD over 65 is only offered in some states, and have strict requirements for facilities that accept medicaid (not all that many do near us).
In our case, the waiting time was about 3 years for a room in the facility closest to us. Alternatively, there was an option about 4 hours away.
Worse, both medicaid facilities we looked at were... bad. Frequent complaints about abuse, very high rates of staff turnover, very little stimulation for residents (one was basically a single old tv on the wall in a cinderblock room - it looked basically like prison).
So yes - Medicaid will cover some costs in some cases, but really - the kids end up paying.