It can be used to help many seniors remain at home.
This part of the article is misleading:
Medicaid provides nursing home coverage if a person’s assets do not exceed $2,000, excluding a home, car and personal belongings.
Since she has a pension along with social security, Bernstein does not meet that threshold. She wants to avoid the fate of many seniors who spend down their assets to qualify for long-term care under Medicaid. That would mean bleeding out her savings, selling her home and becoming effectively destitute.
No one should be deterred from applying for Medicaid for nursing care, either in home or in a nursing home, because of the article. The problem appears to be that she doesn't want to spend down her other assets. And Massachusetts doesn't include your personal home among the assets, as long as you're living in it, so even her home isn't necessarily the problem, unless her "equity interest" in it is over $906K. If it is, she could get a reverse mortgage for the balance, and spend that down on her care, and then qualify for Medicaid.
https://www.medicaidplanningassistance.org/in-home-care/
https://www.medicaidplanningassistance.org/medicaid-eligibility-massachusetts/
What Defines “Assets”
Countable assets include cash, stocks, bonds, investments, IRAs, credit union, savings, and checking accounts, and real estate in which one does not reside. However, for the purposes of Medicaid eligibility, there are many assets that are considered exempt (non-countable). Exemptions include personal belongings, household furnishings, an automobile, irrevocable burial trusts, and one’s primary home (given specific circumstances are met).
For the home to be exempt, the Medicaid applicant must either live in it or have “intent” to live in it, and his / her home equity interest must be no greater than $906,000 (in 2021). (Equity interest is not the same as the home’s value. Instead, it is the value of the home in which the Medicaid applicant owns). The home is also exempt, regardless of where the applicant resides or the applicant’s equity interest in the home, if a non-applicant spouse resides there.
= new reply since forum marked as read