(2025) 6-22 David Carrier Show Hour 1 Podcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. You have, of course found the
place where we talk about a state planning, elder law,
real estate, business law, and anything you happen to call
in about, which would be sixty one six seven seven
four twenty four twenty four. Then sixty one six seven

(00:40):
seven four twenty four twenty four. Give us a shout.
We'll get your question, comment or concern on the air,
whether it's about long term care, whether it's about Will's
trusts and probate. If you're wondering, you know what difference
does it make in my life? If I even have
any of this stuff, I'm not going to use it.
I'll be dead when I have to, and you know

(01:02):
what the heck I'll be, I'll be out of here
if I've shuffled off this mortal coil. And gone on
to my reward. By the time this the state planning
works at all, which is completely wrong. But that's okay,
very common. It's what everybody, It's what everybody thinks. I
had occasion this week. His past week was my annual

(01:26):
sojourn to the Boy Scout Camp. I know it's Scouting America,
but it's still rock and roll to me. It still
boy Scouts to me, so well, you know why not. Anyway,
the boy Scout camp was wonderful. Again. I tell you what,
when you've got fifteen kids and we didn't, you know,

(01:48):
I was thinking about it missed out. You talk about
missed opportunities. You ever have a missed opportunity in your life?
And now I'm doing it for years. And I was
talking with an older guy. Yeah there's still our older
guys than me. Uh, talking to an older guy at
the at the camp. He's like, yeah, we're both remembering
the Gettysburg address, right, and you have to. We had

(02:11):
to memorize that thing. It was one of the things
you had to do, stand up in front of class,
recite to memory the Gettysburg address. I now realized that
that was a teacher tool for occupying quite a bit
of time without having to do too much. But whatever
it was, it was effective because one of the things

(02:31):
that you do in like I teach all the citizen courses,
so they have citizen in the world, citizen and citizenship
in the nation. Uh, citizenship in the community. That's right.
For six hours a day, that's how long it was.
You know, you're on your feet for six hours a day,
you know, teaching, explaining, you know, engaging the kids. And

(02:56):
really these these are, to my way of thinking, the
most exciting courses there can be. But they're viewed with
horror and avoidance, let me say, by the Scouts until
you until you get into it and you get them
really talking, okay, when they really see. It's like so

(03:18):
much else in life where you're concerned about something you
don't really know about it, but what you heard wasn't good,
and so you think, I guess I gotta do it. See,
all three merit badges are eagle required, so you gotta
do these if you're going to get egle and everybody

(03:39):
does them. So everybody's doing them. That's very It's one
thing to have a crowd where there's mandatory, you know,
if you want one thing you gotta get you gotta
do the other thing, and summer camp is a place
to get your merit badges done. Well, Okay, go see
carriers carrier for the citizenship courses. Maybe it won't be

(04:03):
that bad, but it will be, you know, but citizenship
everybody hates it terrible. So anyway, long story short, I
get the kids engaged, because, frankly, what is more fascinating
than what's going on in the world today, what's going
on in the nation, what's going on in your community?
Is there anything you know more important than that? Or

(04:24):
you know, really engaging if you get past the rant,
here's the fact rant, you know, boring as hell? Right, Well,
it's like just to say, estate planning for a lot
of folks is like, oh, I guess I gotta do
it because everybody says I got to do it. But
let me see what's the cheapest, easiest, simplest, you know,

(04:46):
way I can get out of it without having to
put much into it myself. I know, I got to
do it. I got to check that box. See. And
this is the problem with citizenship, with the in the world,
in the nation, in the community. It's boring, is how
everyone views it. But Actually, it's the most fascinating thing

(05:07):
there could possibly be because it really gets into the
fundamentals of what are you doing here? What are other
people doing here? How do we get along? Very fundamental questions?
And one of the things in citizenship of the nation,
And here's I'm going to bring it back to my
missed opportunity. One of the things you have to do

(05:28):
is listen to a speech, ja public speech. You know
something you know it's kind of typical, And for me,
it's the Gettysburg Address, because boy, what isn't in the
Gettysburg Address? Right? Everything's in there, the way the government works,
where where we came from, where we're going to, the
whole conflict between ideals and practical reality. Would we like

(05:50):
the world to be a peaceful place. Yes, we would
like the world to be a peaceful place. Do we
hate that people die in war? Yes, we hate that
people die in war. Guess what, Sometimes you have to
have war and kill people in order to have peace
without killing people. Crazy, isn't it. But ask the people
who fought World War One if that worked, Ask the
people for World War two? How about Korea? How about

(06:11):
other wars? Right where at the end of the day.
The whole point was, if you would just stop killing us,
we'd stop killing you. Right. So my point is that
things can be more than they seem. There can be
more deeper issues than you think is going on. And
in the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln put it all right there

(06:33):
in a very short speech, and my missed opportunity. See
what I do. One of the things we do is
we take apart the Gettysburg Address, so we analyze it,
talk about it, talk about the Civil War was about,
talk about the original sin of America being slavery, how
the Civil War cured to some extent, you know, or
attempted to live up to the ideals, all that kind

(06:55):
of thing. And the great thing is, once the kids
start seeing that that's kind of what what's going on here,
and they start talking to each other about it and
you throw something out, then they're you know, they're like
wolves on red meat, you know what I mean. They
finally see what the significance of this is, and so
they hang around, you know, or they get their early half.

(07:19):
We usually started a few minutes early because everyone was there,
you know, because they liked the class. Why, because they
were dealing with real things. Okay, and they saw the
value of it and came and I missed opportunity. I
told you get to that was We did recite it

(07:40):
half a dozen times, the Gettysburg address. First of all,
I dictated it, so everyone wrote it down. Now these
are kids, they don't know which ende of a pencil
to put to the paper. But we got through it.
So everybody wrote down the address. I dictated it. They
wrote it down. And there's something that comes, as everybody knows,
from actually writing something rather than typing it. There's a

(08:03):
mind brain body connection, whatever it is. The ideas are
more when you write the ideas down. When you write
something down, you get more out of it than if
you just type it or read it. That's the thing there.
So that was part of my strategy. My strategory, as W.
Bush would say, anyway, the point is they write it
down and then we recite it. And believe me, it

(08:26):
is ragged at the beginning. And I don't let up
on them if they're just going to sag there, and
you know, we encourage them forcefully to speak up and
make it happen. But by the sixth repetition, people are
kind of getting The kids are kind of getting into
it right and doing it correctly. But what I did
not do, which I should have done, as I say,

(08:48):
missed opportunity, was have a memorize it right. I mean,
it came pretty close, I think, but four more times
and NTA had it locked in. And that's the thing
about certain things, you know, you say, well I really
could have gone, we really could have gone that extra mile.
And because the issues because the Gettysburg address came to

(09:12):
because I would talk to kids later on or they
would come up to me, you know, it's like, oh, yeah,
you know that was great class blah blah blah, and
it was like, well did you get this part? And
it was surprising how much they retained. It was also
kind of surprising how little of American history any of
them knew. But some of them were like real bright lights,
and they you know, they talked about Civil War and
what was going on. Some of them really new, but

(09:34):
most of them, no, they didn't didn't get the whole thing.
You know, all they had. All they took away was
oh yeah, civil wars, about slavery, and the Juneteenth happened
right that was Thursday, you know, Emancipation Proclamation, all the
rest of that stuff, all that all ties back in
you know when you look at it that way, and
it really is excitement and fun. So I just want

(09:55):
to say that, you know, the use of America are
still out there. There's still if you can engage them, right,
you can engage them, I guess, is what I'm saying.
In the fundamental stuff, and it still means a lot
to each one of them. Okay, it's kind of like, see,
we're really going to bring it back. It's kind of

(10:17):
like a state planning. Everyone thinks it's boring and has
doesn't have anything to do with me, but when you
do it, you actually see just how much it really
involves your values. It really has a lot to do
with you, and it can be at the end of
the day. It's exciting. It's fun just to see how
everything really does work together and you can really have

(10:41):
a positive contribution in that way. You've been listening to
the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney,
inviting you give us a shout. Six to one and six,
seven seven, four, twenty four, twenty four.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
This hour of the David Carrier Show is pro Bonoh
so call in now at seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. This is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well, come back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now here's the deal with like
we're just talking about with six one six seven seven
four twenty four twenty four. That's six one six seven
seven four twenty four twenty four. If you have a question,
a comment, or concern about well anything really, but especially wills,

(11:32):
trusts and probate, you know, that's that state planning stuff.
The stuff is the dumb stuff I gotta do, right,
that's how everybody thinks about a state planning And in fact,
like getting your citizenship in the world, citizenship in the nation,
citizenship in the community, it's actually a very good thing
for you to do. And at the end of the day,
things I mean, that's I guess that's really See if

(11:55):
you don't go through the things that you think are
going to be you know, difficult or annoying or whatever.
And listen, I fully acknowledge one hundred percent that most
of the time those are the most boring merit badges.
But it all has to do. This is my view
of the world. It all has to do with the
way very important stuff is presented, like the idea that

(12:21):
I mean. I was just talking to one of them.
We're Scoop and ice Cream, right, so one of the
nights is, you know, Scooper night. You know, it's ice
cream night, so you know, we're scooping and he listens
to the show. Maybe he's listening now, Hi remember me
from the ice cream line. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah,
well you know, I said, well, you know, he said,

(12:43):
oh I listened to the show. I said, well, that's great.
I know you haven't come to a workshop. And the
answer is, oh, well, my uncle, cousin, brother, somebody is
a financial advisor. I'm like, yeah, well I don't do
financial advising. And what's that going to do with the

(13:03):
price of cheese? You know what I mean. I don't
do that. Oh oh yeah, yeah, well, you know, we'll
get around to it. And I think it's I think
it's the same. It's the citizenship problem, right, it's too boring, difficult, whatever,
or you know, all we have to do and this
is the this is the see, here's the thing. If

(13:26):
you do the citizenship in the nation, for example, community,
if you do those correctly, right. The kids walk out
of it with Wow, this really is something. I'm really
part of, a you know, two hundred and fifty year
thing here, right, it's important, it's real. You know, Lincoln

(13:46):
gave the address for score and seven years ago. We
always start with that. What does that mean for score
and seven years ago? I don't know. Is that the
score of the baseball game or something? No. Four score
means eighty years eighty seven years ago? All right, Well
we've tripled that almost since then. It's you know, it's
now two hundred and fifty years ago, so you know,

(14:07):
three times nine is twenty seven, so you know it's
kind of close three times as far from the beginning
of the of the country. And you're part of that,
like Lincoln was part of that. Like those soldiers who
living in dead who fought here, you know that their
contribution was all part of it. You know, you're part
of this thing and getting and and when you get

(14:32):
engaged in that, when you see that, it's hard to
unsee it. Right, It's hard to go back and think, well,
history's dead and doesn't have anything to do with me,
and everything's brand new, and you know, I'll throw some
rocks at the police or something, because that seems like
a better idea. I don't know. I don't even know
what's going on with those people. I guarantee you they
don't have much in the way of history in their head.

(14:53):
Because the experiment, the American experience, experiment, whatever you want
to call it, right, it is a very exciting thing,
very exciting thing. And I think that too often the
whole estate planning thing is oh, dumb stuff I gotta do,
Like I want to be eagle scout right, want I
got to get these merit badges. They're eagle required. And

(15:17):
and because they're required, most people think, you know, and
I'm talking about the people providing the service, the people
who are actually doing it, because I've talked to people
doing citizenship in the nation. It's like, oh boy, the
kids hate that one. And I'm thinking, well, why do
the kids hate that one. It's the best one there is.

(15:38):
I mean, these are the these are the most exciting
ones that they're you know, yeah, a shotgun is fun,
rifle is fun, Welding is fun. Fishing I think that's
boring too, Sorry, but you know, I think it's the
most exciting there could be. Well, guess what so do
the kids if you present it correctly, if you if

(16:01):
and if you develop right their acknowledgment the reality that
they're part of this whole thing. It's the same way
with the state planning. You know, you think I'm reaching,
I'm not reaching. It's exactly this is why we do
the Red Wagon club. This is why you know, follow
on follow through is so important when it comes to

(16:24):
a state planning, and it's something nobody ever does because
I don't know why they don't do it. Maybe they
don't get it in the first place, you know what
I mean. Like if you're a merit badge counselor and
just blah b fill in the blanks. You know, with
regard to our nation's history, it's like, holy cow, you
know you're missing out on the on the best parts
of it. You're treating it as if you know this

(16:47):
was you know, dumb stuff I gotta do. Yeah, you
gotta do it. But it's not dumb by any stretch.
There's a reason it's required, right, But the merit badges
and stuff, But when you get it before a couple
of weeks ago, I had two or three families came
in with the kids to explain what it was we

(17:08):
had done and how it worked and all the rest.
I had a couple of phone calls actually while I
was at camp implementing some things. You know, somebody's got dementia,
and you know, you got to move ahead, and we
got to make sure that everything stays well, stays good.
And it's just so much fun to see that at
the end, right at the end of the process, where especially,

(17:33):
and I say the end, it's really kind of midpoint
when we've got someone who's suffering from dementia, or now's
the time for the plan to really work, where instead
of being frozen with worry, in total denial about what's
going on with your spouse, with your parents, whoever, instead

(17:55):
you're empowered to make good choices, reasonable choices to do
things correctly because you already started this process. This is
where it comes to fruition, right, And it's not all
about when happens when your dad. Yeah, that's all good,
And I'm not saying we don't do it. Yeah, we

(18:15):
avoid probate and all that. That's all good, right, and
that's very important, but it's so far from being the point.
It's so far from being oh you just chick the
box and it'll be for somebody else. It's really for
you to know that things are well taken care of
for you, for your spouse, for your mom and dad,

(18:38):
you know, depending on who it is that's doing the planning.
And I think that's really the that's really the key
to this. It's it's like so many people do it
with an absolute, as my father used to say, a
lick and a promise. They don't do the job thoroughly.
They don't do the job correctly. They do it's customary,

(19:00):
which is which is absolutely I can't even tell you.
The customary estate plan is throw the kids' names on
the accounts, right, Put your spouse and then the kid's
names on the accounts and call it done. Do a deed, right.
I mean it doesn't account it doesn't account for your life,
It doesn't account for your spouse, it doesn't account for

(19:20):
the kids. I mean, it's just total blindness in terms
of doing stupid stuff. You know. But I got to
do something, and this is the easiest way out of it. Okay,
what if there was something more to it than that.
What if there was a way to do your estate
planning so it really kept the promise of what you
could actually accomplish. You've done all the hard work, You've

(19:43):
worked this hard, Why throw it away now with traditional
stupid estate planning. That's why we do the three Secrets workshops.
That's why we have this whole model so that you
can really realize everything that you should from the work
that you've already do done. You've been listening to the
David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier, your family's personal attorney.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
David's got the how too you're looking for Just call
seven seven four twenty four twenty four. This is the
David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Welcome back to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney. Now is the time give us
a call sixty one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. Six one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. What could it hurt? Well, not too painful anyway,
if you give us a call at sixty one six

(20:38):
seven seven four twenty four twenty four. If you have
a question, comment, or concern about Will's trust or probably think, hey,
my financial advisor said put the just put my spouse,
my kids on my IRA. Why is that the worst, horriblest,
terriblest thing you could ever possibly do. Why? Why that's
uncustomary advice? Isn't it non true? Additional, why do I

(21:01):
say that ninety six? I think it's I'd say one
hundred percent of the state plans fail. Most of the state
plans do, almost all of them do. Why would we
say that that's so unfair? So unfair? Well, maybe it's
because people don't actually think about most of what they
should be thinking about. And oh, yeah, but that's boring.
That's boring and terrible and horrible to be thinking about

(21:23):
all that stuff. That's all you lawyer things. You know,
Why would I really care? Why do normal people, regular
people really care about any of that? It's also boring
and et cetera. Well, maybe it is. Maybe going broke
is much more exciting than well, then taking care of business,

(21:44):
you know what I mean? How boring is it to
go to a job every day? Uh? I ask you?
And yet you did? And yet how boring is it
to pay your bills? Be much more exciting? If you didn't,
you'd have to drive around wondering when people were going
to come and take your car away from you, throw
you out of your house. Boy, that'd be more exciting,
wouldn't it. The Ye, But sometimes you got to do

(22:07):
things that you think of are boring. But but maybe
they don't have to be boring. Maybe actually, maybe this
is the fundamental thing that you need to be thinking about,
is well, how do I manage my life? How do
I make sure that I maximize what's out there? Because

(22:27):
when you do that, see, here's the thing. People when
they do a state planning, they try to do the
minimum possible. It's like those merit pages I was telling
you about. They try to skim by with the minimum,
just put in as little as possible, and then they're

(22:49):
surprised when you get rotten results. Right. So if you're
doing anything that's required, right, it's required, you got to
do it. Okay, So there's two ways to do it.
Number one is to kind of figure out, Hey, what's
really going on here? Why is this required? I mean,
do people just want to make my life a misery?
Or is there something maybe important going on? And if

(23:12):
I figure out what the important thing is going on,
then it might actually be interesting and I might actually
be engaged in it. Okay, And state plannings like that
because people think, oh I got to get it done. Right?
Why do I got to get it done? Because everybody
tells me I got to get it done. Let me
do it the easiest, quickest, cheapest, dumbest way I possibly can. Right,

(23:37):
and I've got and besides, look, look, you guys want
to do all this fancy stuff. But my financial advisor
said that this will work. My financial advisor said, my
accountant said, somebody said I went to a lawyer and
they told me this. I'm like, okay, what are you
going to do about something like that? You know what

(23:58):
I mean, what do you do? Well? The answer is,
we do an educational series right where you get all
your question is answered and a lot of information about
how things actually work, actually work, not just you know
I'm here to get I know that you don't want

(24:18):
to do this, so I'm going to give you something
that will get you out of here as quickly as
possible and we can say we did something which is
typical my experience, typical estate planning. You know, people say, well,
how do you know that? How do you know that? Well, okay,
how many people have I talked to over the last
thirty how many people you think I'll talk to over
the last thirty five years. We're in one hundred and

(24:39):
twenty thousand range now in terms of because everybody who
comes in, not individuals, every family that comes in, we
treat them as a client contact. So we've had contact
with over one hundred thousand. I think we're like one
hundred and twenty five thousand somewhere in there, hundred twenty hundred,
twenty five thousand different We've had the conversation, not everybody
works with us, mind you, not every everybody, and a

(25:00):
lot of those are family members of people who did
work with us. So it's not that we haven't done
one hundred and twenty thousand plans. Okay, I'm not saying that,
but we've heard the stories. We've heard contact right with
that many, with that many families, and over the time
you realize that most of what people are doing is
just get me the hell out of here as quickly

(25:22):
as you can. Okay. It's like it's like, oh, yeah,
I need a filling, but don't drill, just put something
on top of it. The rot is still going on.
You know, you go into the dentist office, it's like yo, oh, yeah,
you want to drill out that decay before you put
the filling in. Now that's too painful. Just put something

(25:42):
over that. Give me some novacate, you know, take the
pain away, just so I can kid myself that everything's
going to be all right. I kidding me. But anyway,
people do that, lots of people do that. We see it,
and I'm just calling it out now. That kind of

(26:03):
planning leads to this kind of question. There's an email. Generally,
is it better to pull all funds from a four
to h one k at once, closing it or in chunks?
I am power of attorney for my mother who's in
a skilled nursing facility. Skilled nursing facility. Okay, that starts

(26:25):
at nowadays it starts around four hundred bucks a month.
That's twelve thousand dollars a month. Okay, four hundred dollars
a day, twelve thousand dollars a month. It's very easy
to pay. Eighteen thousand dollars five to fifty a day.
That's the base rate at one of the local skill
nursing facilities, and of course they're add ons to that,

(26:46):
so twelve to eighteen thousand dollars a month. So that's
what you're that's what you're looking at Oh oh, you know,
but I only paid six thousand for my mom. Yeah,
and it was probably assisted living, and it was probably twelve,
you know, ten, fifteen years ago. Okay, call ask don't
believe anything. This is the great thing about it. You

(27:06):
don't have to believe me on any of this. All
you have to do is just call a few places
and find out what does it cost, what is it
what's your daily rate at a skilled nursing facility? They
will tell you. We can even go to the website
lots of times and they'll have the information there. So
don't believe a word. I say, check it all out.
It's very easy to do. And when I tell you

(27:27):
that it's twelve to fifteen thousand dollars a month, eighteen
thousand dollars a month at a skill nursing facility, don't
believe it. Check it out. And then you'll find the
one in ann Arbor, you know, where it's closer to
twenty four thousand dollars a month. And you'll say, oh,
maybe that, well, but that's ann Arbor. You know it's expensive. Okay, fine,
but just check it out yourself. Do me a favor,

(27:49):
don't rely on me. So this is a guy. This
is a person who's got loved one, my mother in
skill nursing facility for now for two years, almost two years,
twenty four months. So they've spent at least three hundred
thousand dollars. I would say, call it two hundred and
forty to three hundred thousand dollars at least at least

(28:12):
over twenty four months, at least ten thousand a month,
you know, could easily be half again as much, very
easily be three hundred and sixty thousands. So and now
the costs of this have pretty much wiped out. Savings
et cetera, savings, investments, whatever. The only thing left now,
and it doesn't mention the house priorady sold the house.

(28:33):
That's part of the et cetera. I would imagine, because
that's typically how this goes. Mom goes into skill nursing,
you sell the house, then you spend the money, spend
the money, spend the money, spend the savings, the investment accounts,
et cetera. And now you're down. All you got left
is the is the four oh one K. That's all
we got left, and the cost of pretty much wiped

(28:53):
out except for four oh one k that she has
been adamant about keeping. I don't even I don't know
where to even start. Yes, because what you should have
done was two years ago, well ten years ago. Mom
should have done a plan that was more than a
power of attorney, right, that actually anticipated this situation, because

(29:13):
this is a situation for seventy percent of folks at
age sixty five, seventy percent of folks will need three
years of skilled care. Right. Not all of that's in
a skilled nursing facility. Some of it's at home. You know,
different there are different venues for that, but according to government,
seventy percent of folks will need it. Well, maybe you
should think about that too. You've been listening to the

(29:34):
David Carrier Show on David Carrier your Family's Personal Attorney,
and we'll fix this one up when we get back.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
David's perking and working and taking your calls. Now, this
is the David Carrier Show.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Wellcome back to the David Carrier Show on David Carrier.
Still your Family's personal attorney. Now's the time give us
a call. Six one six seven seven four twenty four
twenty four. That's six one six seven for twenty four
twenty four We got a question here, not an unusual question,
actually pretty common generally. Is it better? Here's the question.

(30:10):
Is it better to pull all funds from a four
oh one k at once, closing it or in chunks.
I'm poa for my mom who's in a mother in
a skilled nursing facility and has been for almost two
years now. So that's two years at twelve to eighteen
thousand dollars a month. Okay, that's twenty four times the number.

(30:34):
It's a big you know, you're talking anywhere from But
if it's twelve thousand month, what's twelve times twenty four? Right,
I don't know, close to three hundred thousand to four
hundred and fifty thousand something like that. It's ridiculous. Do the math.
You got a cell phone, whatever it is, multiply at
times twenty four. And this is not me saying it.

(30:54):
It's very easy to, like I say, go check, all right.
I mean people still people still think that it costs
what it costs pre COVID. COVID was five years ago. Now,
five years ago. That's a long time ago, and everything
went nuts, especially expenses went nuts during the COVID. It
hasn't gotten any better. More and more baby boomers continue

(31:16):
to retire and need these services. The demand has skyrocketed, okay,
ask anybody, and the supply of caregivers has plummeted because
guess what, baby boomers didn't have as many kids as
their parents did. What that means is, right, unlike before,

(31:36):
unlike pre baby boomer times, right, where there were more
caregivers than those needing care, Now there are fewer caregivers
than those needing care. Right, all right, supply demand, you know,
basic economics, very simple, right, That's why the price is
going through the roof. And people are go, oh, these
nursing homes are so terrible, and it's like, well, you

(32:00):
wouldn't want to operate a nursing home. Let me tell you,
it's a it's a it's a very very difficult thing
to do. Those people have all my sympathy because the
business proposition is a dicey one. It's it's it's tough,
it's really and you're doing very very difficult things anyway,
point being, for two years now, he's been draining mom's resources.

(32:23):
Probably sold the house first off, doesn't say it, but
that's how these things go most of the time. Frequently
put it that way. My opinion, right, probably sold the house,
spent that spent, the savings, spent the investment account. All
we got less than now is the four to one k.
And the question is should we crash it, should we
pull it out all at once, or should we again

(32:45):
spend it down? And here's the thing two things number
one and Nanna point, which is you should have done
something at least two years ago when Mom went in
the skilled nursing facility, because she's a clear patra right,
she's doing the denial thing. Oh you know, queen of denial. Oh,
this will never happen to me, nothing bat whatever. Well,

(33:07):
we're two years into it now, all right. You would
think reality would begin, would begin to dawn, but you
might be wrong about that. Anyway, what should have happened
here in my world, we would have planned for this, okay, you.
Mom would be calm, the family would be serene. There
wouldn't be any issue because we would have taken the

(33:29):
four to one k, right, and we have options. Mom's
been in there for two years. Maybe that was predictable.
Maybe we thought she was gonna die in two weeks.
I don't know, But depending on what the answer to
that question is tells you what you do with the
four or one k, because now mom is applying for
the medicaid. Medicaid is the way that America pays for

(33:51):
long term care for most people. It's the first resort
for many other people. For most middle class people, it
means sell what we got, spend down what we've got,
and then whatever it left. You know, we don't want
to state having a lean on it, so we go
ahead and sell give them the money anyway, because they're
going to get it at the end of the day.
In Michigan if you go through probate, that's also the case. Right.

(34:15):
So here's what you do with what you should have
done is what you should have done was back in
the day. You should have protected the other assets, which
is entirely possible to do, right. And we should have
used the four oh one k because four oh one
k money is special money, right, four O one k's iras.
It's the only middle class tax break there is. Right.

(34:38):
Every other tax break is for rich people IRA for
a one k the tax breaks the stuff that you
get there, that's for regular people. That's for working class people, right,
and they're treated differently for medicaid. So with a medicaid,
if you're in the medicaid, you can do an annuity. Ooh,

(34:59):
terrible annuity. Well, the problem is if you pull the
money out. Let's assume that there's a couple hundred thousand
in there, three hundred thousand or so, right, You're going
to pay all the income tax all at once at
the highest rate of tax. So what you would do
rather than take it out just in chunks over time,
is you would say, well, how much is in there?

(35:20):
If you're going to do it different strategies right, One
is cash it in, Well, you should split it over
two years, right to lower the tax rate. Maybe that
doesn't work. Then you could annuitize it, right, so the
money comes out. Mom would then qualify for the medicaid.
She would qualify for that, and you could put the

(35:40):
kids as beneficiary on the leftover money. So you look
at mom's life expectancy at this point, who knows, maybe
it's ten years. So let's say mom has a ten
year life expectancy. You can take the IRA. You can
annuitize it and back end load it so that take
just require minimum distribution. Set up the annuity, so you

(36:03):
take just required minimum distributions right now and then balloon it.
You don't take all the rest of it after mom passes.
If you do that, Mom will qualify now for the medicaid. Okay,
what does that mean? What it means is there'll be
something left for the kids, because why is mom adamant

(36:25):
about keeping the four oh one K. I promise you
it's not because she expects to go on a world
around the world cruise. She's leaving it for you for
the kids. Right. Well, if you want to honor that
desire of mom to leave something for the kids, right
you better address the fact that long term care costs

(36:46):
are eating up everything immediately and the way to do
that with a four oh one K with an IRA,
because there are rules that apply, rules that apply to
most investments when you're the applicant, when you're the one
in the situation like this, Let's assume Dad has died.
If Dad had died, we could have saved it all.
But that doesn't look like it doesn't look like that.

(37:07):
It looks like mom's surviving. Right, So what we're doing
is we're assuming that Mom is the one who's receiving
the benefits. Right, This can be stretched out over mom's
life expectancy, not what the doctors say. You look it
up and there's a table the average life expectancy for
someone mom's age, which probably means that if you stretch

(37:28):
it out over that period of time, then there will
be stuff left for the kids. We say, well, wait
a second, how am I going to pay the skilled
nursing facility? And the answer is Medicaid, the Medicaid that
you paid for, just like you paid for Social Security,
just like you paid for Medicare, you paid for Medicaid.
The difference is that Medicaid Medicare won't pay for long

(37:48):
term care. Your social Security won't cover what it actually costs.
There wasn't a time when it did, but not anymore. Okay,
So what you're doing is you're using the government program,
the taxpayer program, that you already paid for, right to
preserve something for your kids. This is what's typically going

(38:08):
on with these iras, where the parents says, oh, I'm
not going to do that, or I'm not going to
do this or that, and what they're thinking of is
not themselves. What they're thinking of is the kid. All Right,
you can honor mom's desire to leave something to the
family right, and at the same time make sure she
gets the highest quality of care. How in this case,

(38:31):
and again you got to run the numbers on all
of this. It's not you know, you can accomplish amazing
things if you're willing to actually look at what's actually
going on, if you're willing to run the numbers, which
we are, right, then you're going to maximize. Right, whatever
mom's got for her desire to leave something to the kids,

(38:52):
it can be done. The shame is that most of
the time it is not, and mom goes broke. Well,
you've been listening to the David Carrier Show. I'm David Carrier,
your family's personal attorney.