Before we get into the Medicaid Community Spouse Resource Allowance, we should first explain why Medicaid can be relevant to retirees who were never financially needy.
If you work throughout your life and pay FICA taxes, you earn retirement credits. You can gain up to four credits each year, and you will qualify for Medicare when you have at least 40 credits. The age of eligibility is 65 at the present time.
You may assume that Medicare will pick up the tab if you ever need nursing home care. This may be a logical assumption, but in fact, Medicare does not pay for custodial care. Medicaid does pay for long-term care, and this is why it is relevant to many people who qualified for Medicare coverage.
Medicaid Eligibility
Because Medicaid is a need-based program, there is an upper asset limit of $2000 for an individual applicant. This is a very small number, but some things are not considered to be countable assets. Your home is not a countable asset, and this is a very big factor to take into consideration.
Plus, if you are married and you need long-term care while your spouse does not, your spouse is entitled to certain rights with regard to shared, countable assets. The healthy spouse is called the community spouse in Medicaid lingo, and the healthy partner is entitled to a Medicaid Community Spouse Resource Allowance. This would be half of the couple’s shared countable assets.
There is a limit on the Medicaid Community Spouse Resource Allowance. In the state of Connecticut, the limit is $119,220 during the current calendar year.
In addition to the maximum resource allowance limit, there is also a minimum that allows the healthy spouse to keep no less than a certain amount of money, even if this figure is more than half of the total countable assets. The limit in our state is $23,844 in 2015.
Medicaid Planning Information
We have answered a single question about Medicaid planning in this blog post. Given the fact that long-term care is so very expensive, you should get an understanding of how Medicaid can help if you are planning ahead for your elder years.
Our firm has prepared a comprehensive special report on Medicaid planning. This in-depth report is free of charge, and it will provide you with a solid foundation of information to work with going forward. To get your copy of the special report, click this link and follow the simple instructions: Hartford CT Medicaid Planning.
Free Elder Law Consultation
Responsible people who want to be fully prepared for the eventualities of aging should certainly discuss the current lay of the land with a licensed elder law attorney. If you would like to do just that, our firm can help. We offer free consultations, and you can contact us through this page to set up an appointment: Hartford CT Elder Law Attorneys.
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