OT: My Mom is losing her memory and I need advice

[Tbonewannabe]

Hello family,

Needing advice for a tough subject. My Mom's memory is starting to leave and my Dad doesn't know what exactly to do. She has been in and out of the hospital for various things (hip replacement then rehab, then fell and broke her leg right below the knee and more rehab along with fighting infections).

My Dad has been mentioning her memory is going. I live in Atlanta (they are in Northeast Mississippi) so I am not around her enough to recognize how bad it has gotten. I have noticed little things that seem off but just chalked it up to being in the hospital and getting old.

My Dad thinks that the government will basically take everything from him if he has to put her in a facility to take care of her. I have no clue about any of this and am just now starting to research. I figure that I will eventually have to get a lawyer involved but wanted any advice that anyone can give.

Thanks for any help.

[Catfish]

Sorry about your mom. Prayers for your family.

[Vandownbytheriver]

Why would the government take their property if he puts her in a long term care facility?

[Tater]

Why would the government take their property if he puts her in a long term care facility?

Because this is America and you can do everything right your whole life but if you get sick and have medical bills you are absolutely ****ed. We're a 3rd world country with how we treat healthcare. If the government would get its head out of corporate donors crotch's then we'd actually be able to have real discourse in this country. But as it stands you gotta have a job to not get ****ed on health insurance and even that's not enough. Source: My father who worked two jobs had the family bankrupt within 2 years when he got sick. Lots wasn't covered due to pre existing conditions that stemmed from a childhood illness. Life insurance was shit too.

Medical industry sucks. I'd almost suggest getting divorced and having her sign away all property to him. (It just matters to government and insurance anyways. **** it.) Have a lawyer draw it up. And when she goes, don't accept any of the debt. They'll try to trick you (both husband and son) into it. Don't do it.

[starkvegasdawg]

Why would the government take their property if he puts her in a long term care facility?

Because a lot of times insurance won't pay for that until all means to pay for it yourself are gone. That means life savings, your house you can sale, etc. It's bullshit what they can make you do. Basically have to be flat broke before Medicare kicks in. At least it used to be that way. It's why my mom put a lot of property in my name so if she ever had to do that they couldn't take it.

[Quaoarsking]

Because a lot of times insurance won't pay for that until all means to pay for it yourself are gone. That means life savings, your house you can sale, etc. It's bullshit what they can make you do. Basically have to be flat broke before Medicare kicks in. At least it used to be that way. It's why my mom put a lot of property in my name so if she ever had to do that they couldn't take it.

I believe you're referring to Medicaid, not Medicare.

[Martianlander]

Because a lot of times insurance won't pay for that until all means to pay for it yourself are gone. That means life savings, your house you can sale, etc. It's bullshit what they can make you do. Basically have to be flat broke before Medicare kicks in. At least it used to be that way. It's why my mom put a lot of property in my name so if she ever had to do that they couldn't take it.

It's wise that she did that. It also has to be out of her name for a certain period of time. Seems like it's around two years but don't hold me to that. Tbone I would consult an attorney immediately to see what your options are. Seems like the government swoops in when people are the most vulnerable. Prayers for your mother and I hope everything turns out for the best.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Well it does seem like that, the government swoops in when people are the most vulnerable.
The other side of the coin is this, if the government gave zero assistance, what would be the financial outcome of an elderly person going into an assistant living facility with mental cognitive issues? Would the surviving spouse be responsible for the money? Yes they would, until they were bankrupt. Would they then kick the patient out on the street if they couldn't pay, yes they would.

The issue here is simple. One large group of individuals in this country, cannot stand a person getting a benefit for something when they do not meet the needs test for that benefit. We demand as a society that in order to receive government assistance, you cannot exceed some arbitrary benchmarks. This is why there are monetary limits to welfare, basically forcing people not to earn too much money or else they lose benefits. Keeping them on the edge of poverty, because it takes too long to earn a living wage when you start from nothing. The solution here is to offer a time based welfare system. IF you qualify for welfare and get a job to help your family and you exceed the threshold for that benefit, maybe you should be given a couple more years to truly get on your feet before the benefit expires. The flip side of that is that people actively manage their production to make sure they don't lose that benefit and they stay on the system longer.

When it comes to twilight of life issues like this, what would half the country agree is the correct path? Give money to someone that has money to pay for these services, or not? Imagine you have 500k saved for retirement and your wife, age 65, is suffering mental decline. That 500k will be consumed in a matter of 50 months, easily. Not even considering the spouse that is still on the outside trying to survive.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Because a lot of times insurance won't pay for that until all means to pay for it yourself are gone. That means life savings, your house you can sale, etc. It's bullshit what they can make you do. Basically have to be flat broke before Medicare kicks in. At least it used to be that way. It's why my mom put a lot of property in my name so if she ever had to do that they couldn't take it.

I think you have to have property transferred out of your name 7 years before you apply for Medicaid. Medicare wouldn?t pay for any long term care for my dad, so we had to do a ?swing bed? setup. He passed away before we were going to have to sell his house and land to pay for long term care.

[Vandownbytheriver]

I had no idea that it worked that way. That is insane they can just take all of your property like that.

I have BCBS insurance and besides the prescription benefits, it sucks. Almost a $2000 deductible before it pays anything. I despise having to pay for insurance.

[Johnson85]

I had no idea that it worked that way. That is insane they can just take all of your property like that.

I have BCBS insurance and besides the prescription benefits, it sucks. Almost a $2000 deductible before it pays anything. I despise having to pay for insurance.

They can't "take your property". They charge you for providing assisted living. It's pretty simple when you're single. You pay for care as long as you can, and if you ever don't have enough money to pay, Medicaid will pay. The "lookback" rules people are referencing are to make sure people needing assisted living don't give away their property to push the costs for their care onto taxpayers before they run out of money. That is all straightforward enough and eminently fair.

It gets complicated when you are married, as if you don't plan well, you can easily have a couple that saved diligently and have enough assets to live an upper middle class life in retirement, but don't have enough to cover $100k a year for one spouse while also maintaining the primary home and living expenses of the independent spouse. In those situations, one spouse needing assisted living can result in both spouses ending up with essentially nothing beyond a homestead and some pretty modest exempt income. I don't think you should really be forced to scramble more than one half the nest egg to care for a spouse, but that's an almost impossible standard to enforce.

[Tater]

They can't "take your property". They charge you for providing assisted living. It's pretty simple when you're single. You pay for care as long as you can, and if you ever don't have enough money to pay, Medicaid will pay. The "lookback" rules people are referencing are to make sure people needing assisted living don't give away their property to push the costs for their care onto taxpayers before they run out of money. That is all straightforward enough and eminently fair.

It gets complicated when you are married, as if you don't plan well, you can easily have a couple that saved diligently and have enough assets to live an upper middle class life in retirement, but don't have enough to cover $100k a year for one spouse while also maintaining the primary home and living expenses of the independent spouse. In those situations, one spouse needing assisted living can result in both spouses ending up with essentially nothing beyond a homestead and some pretty modest exempt income. I don't think you should really be forced to scramble more than one half the nest egg to care for a spouse, but that's an almost impossible standard to enforce.

Hard disagree on it being fair. If the costs weren't ridiculous, maybe. And pushing the cost onto the taxpayer? Give me a break. This is the most un-empathetic post I've seen on here which is saying. You clearly have not had to personally deal with the hell that is having a loved one get sick in the United States. If you aren't upper class (read as: 1M+ income annually, so maybe 1 or 2 people on this board) then you're choices are: help keep them comfortable and piss all their money / assets away, let them die quick and not comfortably to help the rest of the family, or do what others have suggested.

I want you to think how stupid it sounds to say that getting permanently disabled and saddled with severe medical bills at 40 after having worked two jobs a vast majority of your adult life (and not 'fake jobs' either, one was school teacher which is a whole other issue) which causes your family to file bankruptcy and be left next to destitute, to say that THAT is eminently fair. Really think about it. And if your two brain cells can't realize how stupid it is., then **** off and post less.

[BoomBoom]

Hard disagree on it being fair. If the costs weren't ridiculous, maybe. And pushing the cost onto the taxpayer? Give me a break. This is the most un-empathetic post I've seen on here which is saying. You clearly have not had to personally deal with the hell that is having a loved one get sick in the United States. If you aren't upper class (read as: 1M+ income annually, so maybe 1 or 2 people on this board) then you're choices are: help keep them comfortable and piss all their money / assets away, let them die quick and not comfortably to help the rest of the family, or do what others have suggested.

I want you to think how stupid it sounds to say that getting permanently disabled and saddled with severe medical bills at 40 after having worked two jobs a vast majority of your adult life (and not 'fake jobs' either, one was school teacher which is a whole other issue) which causes your family to file bankruptcy and be left next to destitute, to say that THAT is eminently fair. Really think about it. And if your two brain cells can't realize how stupid it is., then **** off and post less.

Lord knows I rarely agree with J85, but to be fair he was only referring to a single person. It makes some sense, if you are concerned like J85 is about any person anywhere 'undeservedly' getting something for free from the govt. The other school of thought, once minimal but quickly growing in this country, is to stop means testing everything and just give benefits to everyone equally. The rich already paid for it with their taxes, stop obsessing over them getting a public benefit. Conservatives are generally against this because they want govt services to be seen as welfare for the poor, so as to make them unpopular and thus drive support for lower taxes for the rich.

[BrunswickDawg]

Lord knows I rarely agree with J85, but to be fair he was only referring to a single person. It makes some sense, if you are concerned like J85 is about any person anywhere 'undeservedly' getting something for free from the govt. The other school of thought, once minimal but quickly growing in this country, is to stop means testing everything and just give benefits to everyone equally. The rich already paid for it with their taxes, stop obsessing over them getting a public benefit. Conservatives are generally against this because they want govt services to be seen as welfare for the poor, so as to make them unpopular and thus drive support for lower taxes for the rich.

Without getting political about it - a major issue is that Medicare and Medicaid are not being used as intended. They were meant as insurer/provider of last resort - so their programs are built around that approach. You HAVE to be indigent qualify. Our political leadership - unable function from any perspective - has allowed the insurance/medical industrial complex to turn Medicaid and Medicare into the defacto providers for everyone over 65 without changing the structures of the program. Think about how broken our system really must be if for the majority of citizens in the country the only option for elder care is give away all of your assets and declaring yourself indigent. And as you can see from multiple posts on this thread - that is the typical experience.

We, as a country, have to do better than this.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Lord knows I rarely agree with J85, but to be fair he was only referring to a single person. It makes some sense, if you are concerned like J85 is about any person anywhere 'undeservedly' getting something for free from the govt. The other school of thought, once minimal but quickly growing in this country, is to stop means testing everything and just give benefits to everyone equally. The rich already paid for it with their taxes, stop obsessing over them getting a public benefit. Conservatives are generally against this because they want govt services to be seen as welfare for the poor, so as to make them unpopular and thus drive support for lower taxes for the rich.

Yep. Means testing is a major issue with all welfare systems, but dammit if a large portion of our country just cannot stand someone getting something for free when it isn't them or their family. youtube channel 2 cents just had a video on means testing and the welfare system keeping people poor. Almost impossible to break out of the cycle, because at a certain limit that isn't a comfortable living, a person losses so much assistance it is prohibitive for them to grow.

[Johnson85]

Hard disagree on it being fair. If the costs weren't ridiculous, maybe.

Our healthcare costs are ridiculous. That's what happens when you artificially limit supply while subsidizing demand. I wish we wouldn't be so stupid with it, but the way to fix that is to stop pushing stupid policy, not to try to subsidize it more. Medicaid is means tested welfare. It's not supposed to help people preserve assets or pass on assets to family. It's supposed to make sure they are not left on the street when they don't have money.

And pushing the cost onto the taxpayer? Give me a break. This is the most un-empathetic post I've seen on here which is saying. You clearly have not had to personally deal with the hell that is having a loved one get sick in the United States. If you aren't upper class (read as: 1M+ income annually, so maybe 1 or 2 people on this board) then you're choices are: help keep them comfortable and piss all their money / assets away, let them die quick and not comfortably to help the rest of the family, or do what others have suggested.

I actually have had to deal with it with a grandparent. Had my grandfather's health declined quickly instead of slowly, he could have passed on a high six figure inheritance to his children. Instead, he pretty much exhausted his savings on end of life care. I think in general all his children are happy they had more time with him. I've never heard any of them complain that taxpayers didn't pick up the bill so that they could get an inheritance. I've certainly never thought that. Somebody has to pay for end of life care. I wish we didn't make it unnecessarily expensive without improving the quality (most nursing homes that will take medicaid are not where you want to be), but provided we're going to make it expensive, it seems pretty reasonable and empathetic to say people pay for it if they can, and taxpayers pay for it if they can't. It doesn't seem empathetic to me to want other people to pay more taxes so I could inherit more money. Lots of people don't get inheritances. And I suspect that on average, people with parents who could have left them a good sized inheritance except for end of life care probably still start off with a leg up on average, even without the inheritance.

I want you to think how stupid it sounds to say that getting permanently disabled and saddled with severe medical bills at 40 after having worked two jobs a vast majority of your adult life (and not 'fake jobs' either, one was school teacher which is a whole other issue) which causes your family to file bankruptcy and be left next to destitute, to say that THAT is eminently fair. Really think about it. And if your two brain cells can't realize how stupid it is., then **** off and post less.

Well, disability at 40 is a little different from what we were talking about, but when somebody becomes disabled and has to rely on the government for care and support, what is the "fair" amount of support they should get? If you provide them the median income, then is that "fair" to the people that are working and making less than the median? If you provide them the income they were making before disability, is that "fair"? Certainly hard work goes a long way, but inherited traits matter a lot too. Is it fair that getting lucky in inherited traits but unlucky in health gets you better income than somebody that is unlucky in inherited traits but lucky in health? What about the person that is lucky in inherited traits but gets unlucky in health before establishing an earnings history? Those don't seem like questions with obvious answers to me, even if you have more than two brain cells. And that's ignoring the incentive problems when you make government aid too generous. Disability pay is not particularly generous right now, and we still have tons of people that pursue fraudulent disability claims so that they can not work and/or work for cash. That's not going to get better or easier to address if disability pay gets more generous.

ETA: And again, I don't think somebody should be made worse off by being married to somebody that needs end of life care. They shouldn't have to give up more than half their nest egg. But while that's an easy enough concept, I don't know how easy it is to put into practice.

[Cooterpoot]

Move everything she's got out of her name. That's what my dad did. He gave everything to all of us before he got to bad to do anything. All they get is their government check at that point. But nice facilities cost a fortune. So be prepared to pay for a nice place.

[Homedawg]

Move everything she's got out of her name. That's what my dad did. He gave everything to all of us before he got to bad to do anything. All they get is their government check at that point. But nice facilities cost a fortune. So be prepared to pay for a nice place.

It might work. But they are going to go back at least 3 years. Supposed to be 5 but they stopped at 3 w my grandmother. But this advice is certainly correct. Can't hurt. Night not work but can't hurt.

[Cooterpoot]

It might work. But they are going to go back at least 3 years. Supposed to be 5 but they stopped at 3 w my grandmother. But this advice is certainly correct. Can't hurt. Night not work but can't hurt.

Nothing they can do if everything is sold. We sold everything we couldn't hide. And we used an attorney in Hattiesburg to get it handled. It worked. Not only that, but the nursing home had to refund us money in the end for not handling things appropriately.
We filed a lawsuit at one place where a crack head work beat him up. Got money there too.
It's as shitastic as life gets. I don't wish it for anyone. Hope I kill over before then.
As soon as something is amiss with them, make the move to avoid issues people are mentioning.

[yjnkdawg]

Nothing they can do if everything is sold. We sold everything we couldn't hide. And we used an attorney in Hattiesburg to get it handled. It worked. Not only that, but the nursing home had to refund us money in the end for not handling things appropriately.
We filed a lawsuit at one place where a crack head work beat him up. Got money there too.
It's as shitastic as life gets. I don't wish it for anyone. Hope I kill over before then.
As soon as something is amiss with them, make the move to avoid issues people are mentioning.

Glad it worked out for you.