Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
He served at the Pentagon as an army jag. He
graduated from Notre Dame and has two law degrees from
Boston University and Georgetown University. He's been practicing law for
over thirty years. He's your family's personal attorney. It's time
for the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show on David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now is the time to give
us a call. Six one six seven some of them
four twenty four twenty four. That's six one six seven
some of them four twenty four twenty four. You know,
we got started here talking about the website. You know,
we've been doing websites for the firm now for quite
(00:48):
a while. And the problem with the website is how
do you make it useful? Right? And generally there are
three kinds of people who come to the website, you know,
come to us. The first for people who are planning.
And there's people with young kids who are planning. There's
folks who are you know, fifties, sixties and up, you know,
(01:08):
who are planning, so planning, you know, looking ahead, positive changes,
blah blah, you know that kind of thing, that forward
looking mentality. And then there are folks who are in crisis,
need help now right now, you know, we've we've made
it through the holidays. Nothing's getting better, which it doesn't
(01:31):
get better, you know with that in the life kind
of thing, you know, with the dimension and all the rest.
It goes on for years, right, three years average, according
to the National Institute of Health on long term care
dot gov look it up, you know, to believe me
on any of this stuff. You know, well, some of
the stuff you do, but now most of it. You know,
the stats are the stats are you know, federal government.
(01:53):
I know you don't trust the government, but you know,
sometimes they don't waste all your money, right, Sometimes it
gets statistics that are halfway decent. And according to the
National Institute of Health Long Termcare dot gov, on average,
when you're sixty five, seventy percent of people who make
it to sixty five, we'll need three years of skilled care.
Twenty percent will need five years or more. And that
(02:17):
didn't used to be primarily paid care, that was family care. Okay,
but I don't know if you've noticed this, but there
are an awful lot of these baby boomers. You've heard
of baby boomers right, boomers, what do they say, Okay,
boomer or whatever. Right, Well, there's a lot of us, okay,
(02:38):
And we didn't have as many kids as our parents did,
which means that there's a great demand for care and
a very small supply of care givers. Demand up, supply down.
Price goes up, price goes through the roof. That's the
situation that we're facing right now. Because my dad had
(03:00):
eight kids to look after him, right, and he was
still pretty good. I mean, not a mom was in
long term care. But you know, dad was pretty much
on his own with one of us hanging around every
couple of weeks, you know, doing shifts. Well, I don't
have eight kids, do you. I mean, are your kids
going to show up and you know I hang out
(03:21):
with you? I doubt it. And so the shift to
pay care is accelerating. And the things that used to
be done at home, right or you know, you hire
the neighborhood lady or whatever to help out. The neighborhood
lady herself is in long term care.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Now.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The truth, lady, they're not around. Okay. This is the
situation that we're that we're confronting right now and will
for the next You know, it depends on who you
believe for the next ten twenty years, at which which
boy will all be gone and then you'd be stuck
with a whole bunch of empty nursing homes. But that's uh,
(04:01):
that's how it goes, right. Let's hope they Let's hope
that when they build them, there's you know, the lung
er care facilities for you know, over the next generations,
that they make them, I don't know, easily to convert
to something else. I don't know, video arcades or something,
who knows, you know, tape rental stores, whatever, the whole
(04:24):
obsolescence thing. So, but that's so that's a group of
people that we that we're dealing with, right, so the planners, right,
that's one second with people in crisis, uh, and then
the third of people who are we're doing trust administration
or moving the assets from one generation to the next.
(04:45):
And the problem with website is when you call it up,
I mean, boom, there it is. It's it's just flat,
you know, it's just nothing, nothing going on. How do
you you know, And we tried all kinds of ways. Okay,
big buttons. You know, if you're here for this, you know,
click on this. If you're here for that, click on that.
And one of the things that this they've had these chatbots.
(05:10):
Have you heard of these on websites? You know, Hi,
I'm Sally, your digital assistant. You know, ask me anything.
And generally they're not very limited, very limited utility, very
limited use. And what we're building into the new one
right now, we're working on this. No, we actually you know,
getting down the road on it is to use some
(05:31):
of this AI stuff. Now. The problem with artificial intelligence,
the way that it's done right now, it hallucinates like crazy.
If you can ask it a question and frequently you'll
get back good stuff. But there have been lawyers got
in big trouble because they used AI to write briefs,
okay and gave them to the court. Well, the AI
(05:54):
made stuff up. It just made stuff up, but things
that weren't true. It made up citation. I mean, some
people have really gotten into trouble over that aspect of it.
So you have to be very careful. It's the old
garbage in, garbage out. So what we've done is we've
created libraries of stuff that I've done over the years, right,
(06:18):
and it can be the radio shows, the TV stuff,
the writing. You know, several years there, I was writing
a column every week. Now you put all that in
along with our other materials, you know, the stuff that
we use in workshops and all the rest. You put
all that together and you say, Okay, this is what
(06:38):
you can look at. Okay, don't look at don't go crazy,
don't look at other silly stuff. This is what you know.
This is what you can look at. And then and
what we found is we are finding it's a it's
a developmental process. You know, it's not finished yet. What
we're finding is you can ask it the questions that
(06:59):
people routinely ask and get some decent answers from it.
You know, our newsletters are in there too, so you
can actually get some useful information. Now that's no substitute,
of course, to individual stuff. But the idea here is
that no matter what you're coming because they're very different.
Obviously they're very different. Right, if you're planning with a
(07:21):
young family, if you're planning with your kids are all
grown up, If you're in a crisis situation, if you're
loved one has passed and you're wondering how does the
administration work? Those are all very very different sorts of
things you know, to be concerned about, and there's no
one size fits all answer to it. Okay, but but
(07:44):
they're all linked together, and what you do over here
affects what's going on over there. And it looks like
it looks like this AI is going to be pretty
useful in terms of getting you an answer right away
as opposed to to you know, having to go through
you know, have to sit down and look at together.
(08:05):
You know, it should be it should be much more
responsive and get you to more information that will be uh,
that will be useful. Generate it for your right right there.
Some of the some of the stuff that it can do,
it's crazy stuff. It'll put it'll put it together for you.
Like you can do a podcast. You know, you ask
(08:26):
a question, right and one of your options is to
turn it into a podcast. So it'll actually have like
two different voices. So I mean, right now, you only
got one voice mine, but with this podcast thing, you
don't have like two, I'm serious, it's crazy stuff, right,
We'll have two different voices, so it's a little more
interesting talking back and forth about whatever the whatever the
(08:50):
issue is. You can get it printed out, you know,
there's all kinds of there's all kinds of really really
cool stuff. Now that doesn't you know, I got to
stake out my territory, right, I mean, that doesn't. That
doesn't there's no substitute for actually sitting down and actually
figuring things out. Because every family is unique, it's different,
(09:12):
but it's a much more involving personal, right, I mean
one of the one of the problems. Of course, you
go to a website, you don't get it. You don't
really get an answer, you know, you get a sort
of a canned response. This is much more personal, and
that's the that's kind of our next, our next step,
(09:33):
so you know, keeping keep an eye out for for
that one. And it should be it should be much better,
you know, when you put your information in rather than
having a right now you have to go through venues
to find out when is the next workshop, and this
will just right there for you. So it make things
much easier in terms of signing up for you know,
(09:56):
in person workshop to actually get your stuff done. You know,
is my in the portal. There's some other stuff that
we're uh that's down the line a little bit, just
to make it much more responsive, so you're not wondering
what's going on. It's like for your your own personal
stuff here it is. But more importantly, if you're just
(10:18):
if you're trying to figure out, you know, which way
do I want to go on this? It should be
much more personal, much more personal to you. And the
rest of the show, we're going to cover some of
the other things that you know, the other reasons that
people come in and the sorts of things that you
can do you really should be doing in terms of
(10:38):
planning and handling handling your affairs. It's not that hard.
It just has to be done, and it makes such
a huge difference for your family, you know, for your
own existence, first for your own life, but then for
your family as well. You know, it's the avalanche that
starts at the top of the hill right now. Have
(11:00):
the most control over what's going to happen, but as
it goes on down, let's control. You've been listening to
the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney, dreaming.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro bono,
so call in now at seven seven twenty four, twenty four.
This is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. As I say, there are three
times when people give us a shout, all right. Is
when is when you've decided to do some planning a
rally ray If if you want to hear about that,
just go back to the first hour. You know it's podcasting,
right because we're iHeartMedia anyway, you know, that's what we
(12:06):
were talking about. Then the planning is, you've got little kids.
You got to plan for the kids. That's your responsibility.
Once the kids are out of the nest, and you
should kick them out, they don't if they don't want
to go, then it's about you, okay, because if you
don't plan for yourself, nobody's going to do it for you.
If you're still thinking about the kids, you'll go broke
(12:29):
and that'll be a terrible thing. All right, This is
my sense of the world. So that's that's the planning
aspect of it. Then we have the next which is
we're in a crisis. Now. This is a good time
to be talking about this, I think because what we've
seen over the years time and again is that people
(12:53):
will struggle through they will rise to the occasion because
no one wants and really it starts, I would say
in October, where people do not want to, you know,
go to the long term care with a loved one, right,
They would much rather make it through the holidays. And usually,
(13:17):
you know, by the time November rules around, you're not
gonna you know, there's not gonna be a volunteer. You'll
do what it takes to keep them there for Thanksgiving
and Christmas. But New Year's was last week, and yeah,
last week, and I got a check. And you know,
(13:38):
at this point, the energy, the ability, the stretch that
families have done to keep a loved one at home
or without additional care right that that has kind of
exhausted itself. And people are getting exhausted. And so now's
the time. So if you've got a crisis case, it's
(14:02):
not game over. I mean, there's somebody I really respect, like,
I'm all about the pre planning. That is my philosophy
on the thing that if you pre plan, you've got
something that works in all fifty states. Gone Virgin Outs
to Puerto Rico works everywhere because it's based on the
federal law of long term care Medicaid, and it's something
(14:24):
that's been around since O six, so we've got nineteen
years experience with it. It hasn't been modified significantly since then.
So you know, it's one of the few things that
you've got some there's no guarantees. It's the law right
and kids do whatever it wants. But it has worked,
and it knows it doesn't seem to be many sign
of it not working. Okay, that's the point. Reliable to
(14:48):
the extent these things can be reliable. Now, the alternative
to pre planning, which is, as I keep saying, is
the least expensive and the most effective thing that you
can do. You can wait and see. Now, what does
that mean? What that means is you're hoping that when
the time arrives that you're loved one needs long term care,
(15:10):
you need long term care, that there will be still
some techniques that we can use to save some of
what you've got. Now, for many, many folks, and by folks,
I mean attorneys and financial planners and all the rest,
the approach to the approach to the crisis case is
(15:36):
to spend down. Okay, we're going to spend down. What
does that mean, Well, what it usually means is we're
going to buy some stuff we wouldn't have bought otherwise, Okay,
because if you would have bought it, then why didn't
you buy it already? That's my I mean, I don't
get it. But you're also going to be spending the
money whatever it is you have on the long term care.
(15:56):
Now that ranges from five to fifty five hundred fifty
dollars a day plus extras. You know, I always I
rule with them that at eighteen thousand dollars a month,
six hundred bucks a day, you know, the least expensive,
very nice places, very nice places, thirteen to five a
month for you know, the the are systems that charge that.
(16:19):
It doesn't get much below that. It doesn't get much
below four hundred dollars twelve thousand dollars a month. It
doesn't get much below that unless you're read in an
assisted living where it might be six to nine thousand
dollars a month. So and these are these are the
costs that we used to see for full fledged skilled
nurse and care. Now that's assisted living. That's the base
(16:41):
assisted living. And this is what I'm talking about, the
demand for care is up, the supply of caregiversus down.
The price goes through the roof that there's no mystery
to what's going on here. It's pretty that's pretty straightforward.
And you say, well, why didn't have to charge so much?
They have to charge so much in order to get
people to actually do the work. And then if you're
a skilled nursing facility, this is something that's special for
(17:04):
skilled nursing facilities. Even if you don't pay, even if
the person living there doesn't pay, they still have to
care for the person. It's like in a hospital, right,
you know why are things so crazy expensive at hospital? Oh?
Blame the hospital. You can't blame the hospital. The hospital
by law can't discharge. Just got to provide the same
(17:25):
level of care regardless of the pay of source. Regardless
of the pay of source. Okay, so and if there
isn't any pay of source, you still have to do
the hip replacement whatever it is that needs to be done.
So who do you think wants to paying for that? Who?
If you looked at a hospital bill, you know there's
(17:47):
a reason that a title or or whatever a ceda
minifin is a dollar ninety eight. It's not super great.
It's not a super great pill of a CETA minifin. Okay,
it's engineer, all right. The reason it costs so much
is because it's got to cover all the other costs
of the people who aren't paying. This is our healthcare system,
(18:08):
all right. So you've got a lot of demand, not
much supply plus, and this is in the long term
care situation, the skill nursing situation, because there's no practical
Yeah there's a method for it, but it doesn't work,
right as in the reality of it doesn't. You know,
it's not it's not effective. Put it that way. Yeah,
(18:28):
there's a oh you could do this. Yeah, no you can't. Yeah,
I know it's there, but it doesn't work. The point
is that when you're paying private pay rate at a
long term care facility skilled nursing facility, you're paying for
a whole bunch of people besides your loved one. That's
one of the reasons it's so expensive. You don't want
to be running a long term care facility. Let me
(18:50):
promise you you don't want to be doing that. It's
not a it's not a happy thing. Very difficult, very
very difficult. Those people deserve all the credit in the
world for making it work as well as it does.
Giving the environment, the regulatory environment, and the just the
nature of what they're trying to do. It's very very
difficult work, and they're doing it in a ridiculous you know,
(19:14):
regulatory environment, very very difficult to do that kind of stuff.
They have all my admiration for doing it as well
as they do. Okay, but we're the consumers, all right,
We're the ones who need the care. We have to right,
we have to take our own perspective and say, Okay,
how can I maximize what I'm doing for my family,
(19:37):
for my family member, for my client, and and I'm
gonna in the next segment, we'll talk about some of
the specific tools that we use to actually get people
qualified without going broke. You don't have to go bro
You don't have to if you've got to luck on,
if your spouse, there's some things that are just for spouses.
There's no reason for you, if your spouse needs long
(20:00):
term care, there is zero reason for you to sacrifice
your financial security. You don't have to give up the cottage.
You don't have to give up your pension or their
pension or Okay, there's ways of doing this, which I
will address in the next In the next segment. In
the meantime, my name is David Carrier. I'm your family's
(20:20):
personal attorney. Give us a call. I don't get six
six three six four hundred. Go to the website Davidcarrier
Law dot com. Come to one of the workshops, give
us a shout and let us know what's going on
in your case. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorn.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
David's got the how too you're looking for Just call
seven seven twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now we're talking about people in crisis,
and this is a good time to be talking about it,
because an awful lot of folks managed to make it
through the holiday season, all right, and now that we're
into the new year five twenty five of twenty five. Anyway,
(21:36):
the point is that for an awful lot of folks,
now is the time and then it will be for
the next couple of months where you just can't do
it anymore. That's what That's just what happened. So the
question is, and as you know, faithful listeners know, I'm
all about the pre planning. I think that pre planning
(21:56):
is the most effective, least expensive. There's just a lot
lot of benefits to doing it when you're not, you know,
at your wits end and at the at the in
extreme situation. Okay, so let's talk about what happens if
you've been caring for your spouse. All right, there's other
stuff that can be done for single people will talk
about that as well. But first of all, it's it's
(22:20):
the spouse because there's not one person at risk here,
you're both at risk. The numbers indicate that the caregiver's
spouse is just as much at risk for death as
the one being cared for. About the time, it's the
caregiver's spouse that dies first. See the irony here, the tragedy, ironic, tragedy,
(22:46):
whatever you want to call it, is that you're taking
care of your spouse so that the spouse gets to
stay at home, doesn't have to go to a facility,
residential facility, all the rest of it. Okay, that's what
you're doing, all right. And the fact of the matter
is that forty fifty percent of the time you're killing
(23:06):
yourself to do it. And what do you think happens
when you finally wear yourself out. What do you think
is going to happen to your spouse when you finally
can't put one foot in front of the other anymore?
Where's your spouse going? Where do you think? Okay? And
the answer is right to the facility where you didn't
(23:28):
want to go in the first place. So why what
about crazy idea? What if we take care of you?
What if we actually it's not selfish, it's not unchristian,
it's not uncharitable, it's not anything. It's just good common
sense to make sure that we lift the burden from
you as much as possible. How do you do that? Well,
(23:51):
the answer, my first answer is the PACE program, program
of all inclusive care for the elderly. I'm a huge
fan of the PACE program. You know, we're just looking
at the new facility in Kane County that's over in Lowell.
It's kind of it's kind of funny. It's right there
on what is it M twenty one where they've got
(24:13):
all the all the cannabis dispensaries and then there's the
then there's the the pay it's beautiful, it's what a
what a super nice facility. But and whatever you want
to say. But the thing is there. It is brand new,
brand new, just opened, okay, and it's there if you're
(24:35):
taking care of your spouse. And he said, well, I'll
not qualify for it. We have a cottage, we have
too much money. You know, there's a there's an income
limit in my spouse. Husband is the one traditional right
who he's got a pension. Uh, the i ras are
in his name. Although there's nothing we can do, there's
nothing we can I talk to the we get this
(24:57):
all the time. I talked to this, when I talked
to that, when they've told us all there's nothing you
can do. We're just spending down the you know, and
hopefully there'll be something left for me, for the for
the for the spouse. This is all blowney, Okay, No, no,
you don't have to take that, okay. And here's here's
(25:17):
what happens. Let's say you've got a spouse and the
spouse has IRA four oh one k or something like that,
and the pension not military retirement pay but an actual,
an actual pension. Let's say that's your situation. Well, there's
a trust that can be done right now, right now
as we speak, to take care of the excess assets,
(25:39):
where we would put the cottage, where we would put
the investment accounts, not not iras, not pension, but the
traditional conventional tax paid dollars. Okay, so we've had mutual
fund forever in a day. Great, Oh we've got a
savings account. Oh we got this. Fine, there's a trust
that that can be put in solely for the benefit
(26:02):
of solely for the benefit of the spouse, solely for
the benefit of the spouse, solely for the benefit of
the spouse. In other words, when I put the money
in this trust or the investment or the cottage or
whatever right, it is held solely for the benefit of
the non medicaid spouse. And when we do that, it
(26:24):
doesn't count anymore. You don't have to spend it down.
You don't have to spend it down. Oh but wait
a second, I still get I know, I know, I know.
We still have the IRA, we still have the pension,
but we're going to take these other assets. And I'm
doing this ass backwards, okay, because usually we take care
of the IRA's first. But I'm just saying, well, I
don't have an iran and he doesn't have a pension. Great,
(26:46):
in your case, all we got to do is this
other trust. We put the assets in there. Now you're qualified,
like next week. Actually takes longer than that because it's
whole bunch of paperwork and we gotta you know, there's
a lot of background to it, but it's it's it's
not a big deal. Well it is a big deal,
but it's not that hard. You know, there's no intellectual
(27:07):
challenge to it. It's a matter of getting all the
records and yeah, that takes time. Moving now, that takes time. Yeah,
but but it's not the situation that, oh, there's nothing
we can do. Oh I got to spend it down.
Oh it's gonna take years. No, it isn't, No, it isn't.
It can be done. That part can be done. That's
under our control pretty much. You got to deal with
(27:29):
the financial institutions whatever. That may take time sometime, but
generally that's under our control. Now here's what's not under
our control, and that has to do with I've got
a four to oh one k. My spouse who needs
the care won't qualify for the care because we've got
too much assets. Because yeah, I know, you dealt with
the cottage, you dealt with all the other money. Okay, good, good,
(27:51):
We got however much we've got that's in that trust,
that's off the table. I still have his IRA. I
still have his pension, saying in his because that's the
way it usually goes. Could be hers, We've had that,
you know. Of course that happens too. Two thirds of
Alshumer's victims are women. So there you go. So it
goes both ways. But got me some slackly anyway. So
(28:16):
what am I going to do? I don't qualify, I
get the IRA. Oh we got to pull it out
and pay all the tax. Oh that's terrible, don't want
to do that. Plus he's still got a pension, so
he's not going to qualify. Okay. So this is something
that you know, I'm proud to say we pioneered. It
wasn't popular when we did it. We got into all
kinds of trouble, but you know, you know, my strength
(28:40):
is that of ten because my heart is pure. And
eventually a court of appeals saw things our way, and
you know, which there's no question about what we're talking
about here. Everything I'm talking about now has been vetted,
you know, and all the rest of it, and what
we're going to do is we're going to go to court.
You say, oh, I don't want to go to court.
(29:02):
I know you don't want to go to court. Believe me.
It'll take ten minutes very and we do it by
zoom anyway. But what we're going to do to court
is we're going to go to court and we're going
to move. We're going to move the IRA and the
pension from the spouse who needs care to the caregiver's spouse. Okay,
you cannot do this by going to HR Oh you
(29:25):
know I can't move a pension. Oh I can't. Well,
you're right and you're wrong. You are correct in that
you cannot go back to the company. You can't go
to the pension people or to the financial advisori's got
the IRA. You can't do that. It doesn't that's not
how it works. But but you can go to court. Okay.
(29:45):
You can go to circuit court and you can say, hey, judge,
here's what we wanted. We're going to move it from
here to there, okay, and that'll happen routinely. It's not
intellectually again, everything's got to be done correctly. No shortcuts
to this. You gotta do it right. Uh, and we've
(30:07):
developed that over over the years exactly how to do
it correctly. But you can do it correctly and you
don't have to give up the pension. You don't have
to give up the IRA for one game. When we
get back, i'll explain in the last segment, I'll explain
exactly how that exactly how that works. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Go to our website David Carrier
(30:30):
Law dot com. Give us a call three six one
eighty eight four hundred and we'll talk. There's a place
(30:55):
you and I know that it is.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
None David's and working and taking your calls. Now, this
is the David Carrier Show.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Here's how we're going to fix
the problem. Okay, we've got a crisis situation. You're in
a crisis situation. You're like, look, I got to get
some help with my spouse. I made it through the holidays.
Our mom needs some help with dad. Okay, not just
(31:32):
limited anyway. And what we've been told repeatedly is, oh,
there's no help available. We got to sell the cottage.
We've got to get rid of the farm. We've got
to do this, We've got to do that. Oh. Plus
Dad's not going to qualify for at home care anyway
because he's got a pension that puts him over the
income limit. Plus he's got an IRA because it was
(31:55):
his four oh one k. And you know, and what's
mom going to do if we don't have that money?
And and hopefully he'll die before we go broke? Okay,
I mean, and that's the that's the reality from an
awful lot of folks. And the advice that you get, well,
it ain't necessarily So here's what you do. And I
told you can move the stuff. Here's what you do now.
(32:17):
Rule number one, our clients don't get divorced. Rule number two,
our clients don't get divorced. Rule number three, no divorce.
Are you clear? Are we clear on this? Okay? A
few few. It's probably over ten years ago AARP ran
on the cover of their magazine was about divorce as
a medicaid strategy. And it makes you, it makes you
(32:40):
absolutely sick. You know that they would do that because
even in Massachusetts, which is I also licensed in Massachusetts,
and it doesn't work in Massachusetts either, Okay. So, so
the point is that divorces is a terrible strategy. I mean,
it's terrible on so many levels. It's just awful. So, no,
(33:02):
we're not going to get no divorce. Okay, are we
clear about this? It's no divorce. Are we clear? Can
we get clear on that? We're not talking about divorce here,
but what we are talking about. What we are going
to do is the property settlement part of divorce. It's
not a divorce, it's an action for separate maintenance. It's
(33:25):
the part where we make sure that your assets are
moved from one spouse to the other. Okay, I have
complete authority to do this under the United States Supreme
Court and the Michigan Supreme Court. Under the laws it's written.
There's no question that you can do this. We've done
it dozens of I don't know hundreds yet, but dozens
(33:46):
of times. Anyway, it's been tested in the Court of Appeals.
There have been some decisions our own decision that we
got from the Court of Appeals, but then there was
another one that makes it very clear that the court
can not even inquire into why it is you're doing
this Okay, So this is not something that's experimental anymore.
(34:07):
It's not something that gee, I wonder if this works.
It does work, that works every time you do it,
and it's as private as it can possibly be for
a cord action. But what we can do when we
do this is we can move the pension from the
spouse who needs care to the at home spouse. All right,
(34:29):
we can move the IRA to the at home spouse.
And we're not done yet. That's the start. Now, this
person near your spouse is now qualified for income qualified
and there's no more assets in their name, so we
don't have to move anything out of their name. Now
they've got less than two thousand dollars in their name. Okay,
because that's all over from husband to wife. Now wife
(34:51):
owns all that. Okay, we're not done yet. The key
here is that the spouse under medicaid, the spouse can
have an unlimited amount of income. There's no income limit
on the spouse, on the community spouse, the spouse living
in the community, there is no limit. Can I say
(35:11):
that again? There's no limit on the income. So what
we have to do and the pension is income, right,
what about the IRA? The IRA is not income. No,
but it will be if we annuitize it. Okay, you
got to take out require minimum distributions anyway, So we're
going to take those require minimum distributions out of the IRA.
(35:33):
We're not going to cash it all in, We're not
going to pay the super high rates of tax on it. No,
we're going to stretch it out over the life expectancy
of the at home spouse of the community spouse. And
when we do that the other one you qualify for
the medicaid right away. All right. You say, well, that's
too good to be true. I said, well, well no, it
isn't too good to be true. It's what you paid
(35:55):
for every time you took a paycheck and the money
went to the government for the taxes and all the rest.
This is just taxpayer supported, meaning you supported this. That's
how it goes. All right, This is how we protect
the assets for the at home spouse. And now you
qualify for the PACE program. Your income is down, your
(36:17):
spouse's income is down. We've moved the money over. They
don't care what income the spouse has. We don't care
what you know, Dad's eligible for the medicaid. Mom has
got all the income she needs for the rest of
her life. And as that, remember we already did this
other trust. Remember that other trust that we did where
we put the cottage and the excess money. When mom
(36:39):
gets a payment, if it would put them over the limit,
we just take that and we put it in the
trust we already set up. Are you with me on this? Okay?
I'm not saying it's super easy. I'm not saying it's
you know, but it's doable. It has been done many times.
It can be done if it makes sense in your
(37:00):
family to do it in your family. Okay. And too
often what we see is that the advice that people
get is, oh, there's nothing you can do. Oh you
have to spend down, meaning you know, you have to
lose everything that you've got, no security moving forward. That
is the last thing that's required for this is for
(37:21):
a married couple. And you say, well, if all this
wonderful stuff is available, why are you doing this pre
planning stuff? You know, why do the pre plan The
answer is because they can change it. They already. Look
the only that trust I was telling you about where
you put the cottage and all the rest of it.
They tried taking that away from us. It was a
(37:41):
Supreme Court case. You know, it was a attorney in
mid Michigan. I guess you'd say, who who took the
case all the way to the Supreme Court won it?
Supreme Court reinstated it. But the use of this trust, okay,
But they tried taking it away, okay. So who's to
(38:01):
say that they won't try again and this time be successful.
I don't know. Maybe they will be. I would not
like that, but I'm not going to rely so I'm
not going to rely on the possibilities whatever. I'm going
to rely on something that has been proven true now
for the last nineteen years, the structure that's been set up,
(38:23):
and there doesn't seem to be any opposition to it.
It just is what it is. That's the law. It
doesn't look like it's going to change. They haven't changed,
as a matter of fact, you know, significantly. But this
is the wait and see attitude. I'm not a big
fan of it because you still got to do a
bunch of planning anyway, and you're not getting the benefits
(38:45):
that you could get if you pre planned with the
protection trust, all the rest of it the way that
we do it. But if you are right now in
a crisis situation. You made it through the holidays and
now you're wondering, now what do we do? The answer
but everybody told, oh, we got to spend down, we
got to spend We've had any number of families who
were given that advice, who were executing on that advice,
(39:08):
and we've got them qualified within a couple of months.
Now that is dependent on the court schedule and everything else.
That's not under our control. It's not under our control.
You're dealing with the judge. You know you're dealing with
the court. You know, you just you gotta deal with them.
You know you don't control that. It's not a matter
of creating a trust and all the rest. It's a
(39:28):
matter of having to go to court, get it scheduled,
all the rest. But but you know, we've got enough
law behind us. Now. You've been listening to the David
Carrier Show on David Carrier your family's personal attorney. Give
us a call three sixty one eighty four hundred six
one six three six one eighty four hundred. Go to
the website David Carrier Law dot com. Love to see
(39:51):
you at a workhout.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
You've been listening to the David Carrier Show a lively
discussion addressing your questions and concerns, but not legal advice.
There is a big difference, so when making decisions that
affect your family, your property, or yourself, the best advice
is to seek good advice specific to your unique needs.
If you missed any of today's show, or would like
additional information about the law offices of David Carrier, please
(40:29):
visit Davidcarrier Law dot com.