“He didn’t have a will, he didn’t have a trust, he didn’t have anything set up,” said Yvonne Prettner Solon, who followed her husband to serve the western part of Duluth in the state Senate and now is Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, states the Deluth News Tribune. Prettner Solon vowed to not leave her children in the same situation. Within three months, she had set up a trust and purchased long-term-care insurance, she said in an interview on Thursday. Now in her official capacity, she’s urging Minnesota’s baby boomers to take similar steps. Prettner Solon is spearheading the state’s “Own Your…
Protecting Medicare BenefitsUnder the new health reform law, your existing Medicare-covered benefits can’t be reduced or taken away. As always, you will be able to choose your own doctors. Fighting FraudThe health care law helps stop fraud with tougher screening procedures, stronger penalties, and new technology. Thanks in part to these efforts, we recovered $4.1 billion in taxpayer dollars in 2011, the second year recoveries hit this record-breaking level. Total recoveries over the lastthree years were $10.7 billion. Prosecutions are way up, too: the number of individuals charged with fraud increased from 821 in fiscal year 2008 to 1,430 in…
The sandwich generation could soon be further squeezed. Already caught between spiraling college tuition and care for aging family members, baby boomers could also become liable for their parents’ bills. This on top of worries concerning their own retirement. In approximately 30 states, “filial support” statutes make adult children legally responsible — on paper — for their parents’ expenses. In recent times, most jurisdictions have chosen not to enforce such laws, but that could change. A Pennsylvania court recently found an elderly woman’s son liable for her $93,000 nursing-home bill. But states are observing the Pennsylvania scenario with interest. While…
People with special needs may qualify for a variety of government benefits, including Medicaid and Medicare. It can be difficult to tell the two programs apart, especially because their names are so similar. However, Medicaid and Medicare, which account for the lion's share of federal spending on health care, are dramatically different programs with different eligibility requirements and benefits. Here's how the two programs differ. Means-Tested Means Medicaid Medicaid is a state and federal partnership program that gives medical coverage to selected groups with low-incomes — children, pregnant women, parents of eligible children, people with disabilities, and elderly in need…
Fortunately, there are plenty of helpful tools, as indicated below. For your FREE Assisted Living Guide or Nursing Home Guide please contact our office. Also here are a few sites worth checking out: The U.S. Administration on Aging’s Resource Center, which has links to other sites, including the agency’s Eldercare Locator service. The National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, which will let you find your local agency on aging as well as information about housing options for the elderly. The Department of Health and Human Services National Clearinghouse for Longterm Care Information, a guide to long-term-care choices. Medicare’s Nursing…
Barrels of ink have been spilled over Medicare during this year's campaign. There's nothing wrong with that: Obama and Romney have fundamentally different approaches to Medicare and they deserve attention. Romney, for example, wants to increase the eligibility age to 67 and convert Medicare into a voucher system that relies primarily on competition between private firms to rein in costs. That's a big change. At the same time, the actual differences in what the two candidates would spend on Medicare is fairly modest. This is more a fight over means than ends. The same can't be said for Medicaid. Romney…
While the fate of Medicare has drawn the most attention during the election campaign, some seniors and their families may have even more at stake in the debate over Medicaid. Support from Medicaid plays a much less visible but nevertheless essential role as the safety net for middle-class Americans whose needs for long-term care – at home or in a nursing home – outlast their resources. With baby boomers and their parents living longer than ever, fewer families can count on their own savings to go the distance. Maryland citizens who currently rely on Medicaid are diverse. Most people think…
Parents typically face two choices when selecting a trustee to manage a special needs trust for their child when the parents have died. One choice is a professional trustee–a bank or trust company or an individual who is in the business of serving as a trustee. Of course, professional trustees charge fees, and many banks and trust companies have a minimum trust balance requirement in order to serve as trustee. The other choice is to name a family member to serve as trustee, such as a sibling of the trust beneficiary or some other trusted family member. However, in most…
An Alabama attorney recently filed an application in a spousal case, in which the husband, community spouse, has been farming for more than 20 years to supplement his income. Therefore, they claimed his tractor and pickup truck as excluded because they were necessary in his farming operation. He has been filing a Schedule F. Well, it turns out that because his wife at home Alzheimer's dementia took so much of his time, he had sold off all his cattle in 2010 and only had 29 chickens in his inventory. Since he had no income reported in 2011 from sales, his…
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