Life Happens

March 1st, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And good morning everybody. Welcome to Life Happens Radio. This
is our weekly radio program for baby boomers and their
families where we address the challenges we all face as
we age. We talk about aging as a lifestyle, the
issues that must be confronted, and the careful planning that's
required to avoid crises in the future. Life Happens will
provide you with tools to educate and prepare yourself for

(00:22):
events like preparing for retirement, protecting your income and assets,
planning to pay for a nursing home and paying for
home care, special needs planning, preparing wills and trusts, planning
for an untimely death, and resolving disputes in and out
of court. As the laws and necessities for planning and
care continue to continue to evolve, Life Happens will help
you make smart decisions to ensure that your goals are

(00:44):
reached and your needs are met for both you and
your family. So again, welcome everybody. This is our weekly
radio program. I'm Frank Heming. I'm one of the partners
at Pierre O'Connor and Strauss. We are a full service
law firm located in Latham, but we also have a
full time office indeed or city, and we see clients
all over the place in New York. And luckily for

(01:04):
everybody out there, it's not just me in the studio.
I don't think that would be a good experience for
a lot of our listeners. So thankfully I'm joined in
studio with one of our associates, Miss Patty Wheeland. Hi,
Patty Hip, good morning. How are you doing today.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm good. I'm good. It's great to be here with
you this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah. And so because we're kind of new that the
time slot at nine o'clock we were on for at
eleven o'clock for years and years and years, it's a
little earlier than I think we're a little used to
of just being in front of the microphones. But obviously
thank you for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Of course, of course I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, and I don't know about you. I am really
happy that it's March now.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
I know, I know we're getting closer to spring. I
can feel it.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, February, we were just talking before we jumped behind
the mics here that March or February was a rough month.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I know, even though it was only twenty nine days,
that felt like it was much longer than.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah, No, I don't I don't know. It was the weather.
It was It's a shorter month, so I feel like
it's the same amount out of work, you just have
less days to do it. Yeah, and then we had
we had some things going on in the office. Aaron
was on vacation, Lou was on vacation, our office manager
was on vacation. So we had we were a few short,

(02:18):
you know, we were short a few bodies in the
office that that clearly they're allowed to take some time off.
It was very well deserved and it sounds like they
all had a great time. Lou will be back very shortly,
so hopefully he's enjoying the last piece of his vacation.
But I don't know, it was. It just seemed like
February just decided it wanted to be a little be
a little difficult seeing the calendar change. I'm not I'm

(02:41):
not against it. So and then hopefully, like you said,
hopefully the weather's going to get a little a little nicer.
Because again I don't know if it's me because I'm
getting older or just grouchier or both, but uh, I
usually don't mind the bad cold weather, but it's I
don't like the cold nearly as much, or there's there's
me a lot more. And after a few weeks of it,

(03:02):
it was just like, all right, this is this is enough.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, so I agree.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, anyway, thanks again for being here. I did see
something interesting about you. So I wanted to ask you
a very quick question. Oh okay, So, so when we
do our e blasts for the radio, we try to
give some some uh you know, trivial facts about our
co hosts and things. And it said you said that
your favorite movie was Harry Potter. Yes, yeah, So do
you have a particular favorite one, because there's not like

(03:28):
it's just one Harry Potter movie.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I know, I know it's kind of, you know, a
little misleading because you know, it's a series and there's
a ton of movies. I go back and forth about
what my favorite one is. I think, you know, I
think it has to be the last movie, the part
two movie of the final Okay, final movie.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Okay, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Why that one's my favorite. I mean I go back
and forth between that one and then The Half Blood Prince,
which is the sixth one.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
So okay, I was gonna say I have seen them all,
but it's been a while, and I've read all the books,
but it's been longer. Yeah, And I say, and I
don't remember which one that one is in the series,
but I know it's towards the end or towards like
the latter end of it, So okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, I think I like that one, the physics one
I'm referring to, because it gets into you know, I
like Draco a lot as a character. Oh okay, interesting
like character arc. And I think that movie, you know,
he has a lot of screen time because you know,
he's going through things. He's become a death eater, you know,
And I think that's like, oh yes, sorry, if you

(04:28):
haven't seen it, my bad. But I think, you know,
it's a good kind of beginning to the end of the.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Series that I think. I from what I remember, I
I agree with that. It's just interesting. You're throwing some
Slytherin love out there. That's that's all.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, that's all.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
No, that's great. So so we were at least when
I'm on the show, when I'm hosting the show, I
like to talk about what's been going on in the office,
some current things. So so Patty just not to put
you on the spot. Any cases come to mind that
you've seen recently that that you want to talk about,
because I have a few. If you don't, so anything

(05:04):
coming to mind, let me I don't, all right, do
you think? Let me? Let me do what I want
to talk about. So we had I had some interesting
consultations over the past few weeks, and one of them
is kind of the I don't want to say it's
the best example, but I think it's a really really
really good example to show how even if things seem really,

(05:26):
really really bad, there might still be something that that
people like us can do. So just to give kind
of a rundown of the facts a little bit here,
So we have a guy. He's in a long term
care facilities, in a nursing home. He has pretty bad
dementia at this point. I think he might also have
some Parkinson's going on. I think there are some other

(05:48):
medical issues as well. He is not going to get
better to the point where he's going to return to
the community. Unfortunately. The family has kind of, you know,
they've made peace with that as best as they can,
that he's in the best spot for him going forward.
And the issue that we have here is there's kind
of a complicated family dynamic here, and then there's kind

(06:09):
of the financial reality of the situation. So I don't
know for how long they were together, but his wife
and this gentleman, they were partners for a very long time.
But then they got married I believe in twenty twenty one.
I believe because it was within the past five years.
And kind of explained why that's important in a minute here.

(06:30):
But they got married and then you know, we're together
as a married couple obviously, and then his health really
started to decline and that led to you know where
he is now. So the wife, very nice lady. She
is from a different country. She's from somewhere in Africa,
and she unfortunately had some family issues going on where

(06:53):
a family member passed away in Africa. So then she
wound up going back to Africa for a while to
help deal with things there. And again her husband had
his health issues here, so that kind of led to
more complications because she wasn't, you know, as great of
a lady as she seems. She can't be in two
places at once, she can't be into continents at once,

(07:16):
So she went home to Africa to help deal with stuff.
And then there was a very close family trusted friend
that was kind of trying to help husband deal with
all his issues here as best as he could. Now,
one of the issues is friend isn't a power of
attorney agent for this person, so he was relatively limited
in what he could do and could not do because

(07:38):
he doesn't have any direct power to assist his friend.
So we're going to talk, you know, about why that
might be a consideration to have when you're doing a
plan later in the show. But then what happened then
was the nursing home bill started to pile up because
the guys in the nursing home, they're true him, they're

(08:00):
providing him care, they're providing him meals, and obviously they
deserve to be paid for doing all those things for
one of their residents. So the family then decided that
they wanted to pursue Medicaid for him because they didn't
have the ability to private pay for very long. So
right now, our gentleman has about seventy thousand I think

(08:23):
of assets in his name. I think it's split between
some bank accounts, a small like brokera's account if I'm
remembering correctly. And then like a life insurance policy, and
he has a small IRA that Scott, I don't know,
thirty forty thousand, you know, not a meaningful number in
the in the scheme of things here. So he has
some assets, not much, and the wife doesn't have very

(08:45):
much of her own either. So the question that they
came to us about was, you know, can we can
we get medicaid for this person? And you know, I'm
trying to unpack the puzzle, and a few other things
come to light. So one he has an outstanding bill
to the nursing home. They said, okay, well, do we
have any idea of like what the bill looks like,

(09:06):
because you know that's going to be meaningful information. If
it's a month or two versus several months or more
than that, that'd be good to know. So the family
had a bill. The bill was from I think October
of last year, so you know, roughly four months have
passed since then, and the bill as of that time

(09:27):
in October was like one hundred and six thousand dollars
ballpark something like that. It was over one hundred thousand dollars.
And then if there's another fourish months of pay of
bill on top of that. So, I mean, we're pushing
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of bill now, wow,
so not great? No, right, because I just told you
what he has and he doesn't have that, So not great.

(09:51):
The other interesting fact here is he has the again
the husband, the gentleman here in the facility. He has
a long term care insurance policy and he's got like
four hundred thousand dollars of benefit on this long term
care insurance policy. And Patty, I'll give you a guess
if I had to say yes or no, is he

(10:12):
on claim? What do you think?

Speaker 2 (10:15):
No?

Speaker 1 (10:15):
There you go, right, So he has this untapped money
that he paid for for a very long time that
they're not utilizing.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
And when I asked the family why that was, they said, well,
the nursing home was supposed to be helping us with it,
and then again the wife wound up having to go
to Africa and deal with all the other stuff. And
we thought that they were, and then they doesn't seem
like they were. So you know, to make to make,
you know, kind of just bring this to a close here.

(10:49):
You know, nothing got done, or at least nothing's really
gotten done with seeking benefits under this policy, and there
is an elimination period, so once the claim is filed,
there's going to be some time that has to pass
before where the payments start coming in. But they're not
even trying to access it yet. So they have all
this money that potentially could come to help with some
of these bills. It's not going to cover the entire bill,

(11:11):
but it certainly will help cover some of the bill,
and that's not being utilized either. So we've got a
you know, so we've got kind of a we've got
a few different things to unpack here. Yeah, So ultimately,
what we're going to try to do is we're going
to try to get this guy on Medicaid. We're going
to try to do some planning for him to have
that happen. We're going to try to activate this this policy.

(11:34):
And while like you know, it's not the best solution
because at the end of the day, you know, medicaid
is not going to go back more than a few
months to cover backed bills, right, They're not going to
cover all one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of bill,
So that's going to have to get ferreted out one
way or the other. With the facility, but at least
getting him on Medicaid going forward, getting him to utilize

(11:57):
that long term care insurance to help Hey down that bill.
So there are some positives here, even though it kind
of seemed, you know, pretty gloomy when we first started talking.
So just wanted to use that as an example of
it's not always you know, the answer is very rarely,
there's nothing that can be done right. There might be
limited good that can come, but it's very rare that

(12:18):
that nothing good can come of it. The other one
that came in, essentially it's a family They did a
trust in irrevocable trust to Medicaid trust. I think back
in twenty fourteen. I think it was prior to me
getting to the firm. And now Mom is in a
long term care facility and she has a much more
fluid situation. The family when they met with us wasn't

(12:40):
sure if it's home care for her getting out of
the facility or nursing home care, And essentially what the
reality has become is right now she wouldn't be safe
to go home. So what the family is going to
do with us is we're going to try to get
Medicaid to pay for her nursing home care for as
long as she needs to be there, and if she

(13:00):
can rehab better to the point where they think they
can bring her home between putting a care plan together
and then also probably doing some home ramificate or home modifications.
That's what I'm thinking of. They can do some home
modifications to make it more livable for her. You know,
we are going to leave the door open to transition
her to home care medicaid down the road if we can,

(13:24):
but for now, we're going to try to get her
settled into nursing home, get that all paid for. If
that's where she needs to stay, that's where she'll stay.
If she can just transition home, we can transition the case. Then.
So again they got out in front of the of
the bad things very early, you know, over ten years ago,
and now that she needs to help, now all her
assets are essentially protected and now we can get some help.

(13:45):
So kind of shows like you know, you do the
plan early enough, again the outcome is better. So anyway,
that's a lot of talking from me. So I'm gonna
take a quick break for you guys, and so let's
take our first break and then when we come back
from the break, we'll go through some other current topics
that we're going to talk about and we'll get into

(14:06):
the second half of the show, so stick with us.
We'll come back right after this This is Life Happens Radio.
People these dances, and welcome back everybody. Thanks for sticking
with us. To the break again This is Life Happens Radio.
I'm Frank Heming, one of the partners. I'm here with
Patty Wheel and one of our associates, and we're very

(14:26):
thankful that you're here with us this Saturday morning, hopefully
enjoying the It looks like the sun's coming out so
and it was above freezing when I was driving down
to the studio, so it's heading into positive direction. So
others things that I think are noteworthy. We had some
celebrity deaths happen, and I always like talking about them
on the radio just because I feel like they're relatable.

(14:50):
They involve people that it feels like maybe we know
a little bit or that we've seen a lot. So
we had too. So first we had a younger person
which we which really bummed me out. So the first
one this week was Michelle Trackmanberg, who was a actress.
She was only thirty nine when she passed. She was
just older than me, and I do remember her when

(15:13):
she was kind of I think, coming up to prominence
in TV, like when she was on Nickelodeon shows and
she was Harriet the Spy. I think I still remember,
like seeing the commercials for it, because I think it
was one of the first like Nickelodeon movies that they
were making, or at least that's what it was like
in my brain. Whether that's true or not, I don't know,
but that's what I remember. And then I was a

(15:34):
Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan for a while growing up,
and she eventually came onto that show as a co star.
I don't think I watched much of it once she
got on it, but I certainly knew that she was
on it. And then she did co star and some
other movies that I'm a fan of. Euro Trip is
one of those like cringe, you know, teen comedies that

(15:56):
still makes me laugh every time that I watch it.
She had a really good role in that, so it
was pretty pretty sad to see to see that. So, Patty,
did do you remember anything with her? I know you're
a little bit younger than me, but did you ever
see anything with her in it?

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah? I think the two movies that I've watched the
most with her in them was the Harriet Spy one.
I remember we had that on the VHS. Oh yeack
in the again, and I remember that it was Nickelodeon.
As you were saying that because the tape was orange, was.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, okay, there you go.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, that was one of my favorites from her. I
also really enjoyed her Ice Princess movie.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Okay, Yeah, I missed that one.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I think that was a Disney production.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Okay, but that was.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Really interesting to watch as well. She was really great.
But that's you know, those are the two things that
I know her from the most.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah. Yeah, And I mean the big thing with her,
I mean besides just you know, being a being a
famous person and knowing that she was in stuff. Again,
she was young, you know, she was very young. Now,
I don't think a lot has come out about the
circumstances around her passing. The other thing that I think
has been reported enough that I feel like I can
say this confidently is that it was that she had

(17:03):
a liver transplant relatively recently. And I don't know if
if you know, if anybody or if there's a lot
of information got out about like why that was needed,
but just that she had to have it done. So
it doesn't sound like she was the healthiest person. But
obviously there's a big difference between being needing a transplant,

(17:24):
getting the transplant, and then and then passing, so so
I don't know if there were complications from that, whether
the transplant wasn't holding like they had hoped. And then
the family I did see, I think it was the
last night that I saw. The family declined to have
an autopsy done, so the cause of death will remain
undetermined because they're not going to look into it. So

(17:47):
so I don't I don't know if that means something
or if it means nothing. But I don't think we're
going to find out much more than what we know.
But it sounds of it unless the family wants to
come forward or you know, whether there's somebody else who
knows things. Obviously. The other thing that I thought was
important to bring up with this is again to my knowledge,
she wasn't married.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, I don't think she was. I think she had
a long term boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Right, And that's the point, right as far as I know,
she wasn't married, but she did have a partner that
I think she was with for a while. And we
talk on this show a lot about the importance of
planning and having a plan and setting one up and
changing it as time goes on, you know, all the
things we like to talk about and council people on.
And when you have a long term partner, if you

(18:33):
want them to get things when you go, you have
to have a plan that does that. Because as great
as it is that people can have committed relationships, legally speaking,
they don't mean anything. So if you die, you know,
without a will, without a trust, something like that, the law,
the law of intestacy, the law that says what happens

(18:54):
to your things in the absence of a will or
a trust, doesn't provide for a long term partner, no
matter how long you've been together, no matter how important
they were to you, no matter how good their relationship
is with your friends, your family, right right, they're just
another person. They're they're legally connected to you as much
as I am just sitting here on the radio. So

(19:14):
so I'm hopeful that if her health wasn't great, which
again sounds like maybe it wasn't that maybe she would
have taken some steps to ensure things would go where
she wanted. Yeah, but but I don't. I don't know
if we'll ever know, I don't know. So the the
other the other celebrity news UH broke after that, which

(19:37):
was Gene Hackman and his wife were found.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Dead in their house and their dog I think.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
And there yeah, and their dog, which, yeah, would say
that that clearly sounds a little more suspicious. I did
see late last night because I wanted to make sure
that I was hopefully going to be talking about at
least hopefully the most recent news about this uh this morning.
But what I saw last night was that they had
at least ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
I believe, really, Yeah, that's what everyone thought it was going.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
To be here. Yeah, because again I read it very quickly,
but it looked it sounded like they were found in
different parts of the house.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yes, I read that.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Well, he was in one part, and then the wife
was in a different part, and then the dog was
like in a closet or something like that. I don't know,
it was. It was strange. So whenever, again, like I
don't want to read too much into it, you know,
because it's all it's literally just speculation. But like when
you have something where you have people spread out in
the home but they're all they have all passed, that

(20:35):
sounds more potentially like it might be something like carbon
monoxide something like that, where it affected all of them equally,
just in different places. Yeah, but again I don't think
we quite know very much yet. So so obviously we'll
have to we'll have to keep an eye out to
see what comes from that. And again, there are some
there are some legal things that play here potentially. So

(20:57):
we found a news story they talked about something called
the Simultaneous Death Act, so which makes me think of
like law school all over again. So in New York,
we have at least what I always remember my professor
calling it, we have the what's called one hundred and
twenty hour rule, where essentially it's by law in New York.

(21:18):
It says that for someone to inherit from you, they
have to survive you by one hundred and twenty hours,
which is five days. Somebody has to outlive you by
five days, and if they don't, then they're presumed to
have predeceased you, meaning that for your estate plan they
died before you. Now, for lots of people, this isn't,

(21:39):
I think, usually a big concern because if you're a
single person, then everything just goes to your people. You
don't usually have to worry about someone dying close in
time to you, unless you were with somebody else at
the time of your death and it was you know, accident,
common disaster or something like that. When you're a married couple, right,
if you have the same beneficiaries, like if everything says

(22:00):
to each other and then our children, well, it doesn't
really matter if husband dies first, wife dies first, whatever,
because everything's going to go to the same place anyway
upon the second death. So whether it's determined husband or
wife died first, it doesn't really matter very much if
they both perish at essentially the same time were close together.
But where things can get a little crazy potentially is

(22:23):
if you have different beneficiaries.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
I know, yeah, I remember asking you about that when
I was first starting out, because I remember having a
hard time trying to figure out how that was going
to work, because you know, wife wanted certain beneficiaries and
the husband want different ones, and they weren't the same,
and so I was having a hard time trying to
figure out how that would work out with you know,
that role being in place.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Yeah. So, like just to kind of a put an
example together right before our break here. So like if
we have husband and wife, but they say it's a
second marriage and they both want their children to take right,
husband wants his kid's wife wants it's her kids. Well,
if they both die literally together right with you know,
seconds of each other, then ultimately husband's documents will treat

(23:09):
wife is already gone. Stuff will go to his kids.
Same thing for wife's documents. Husband will be gone, stuff
goes to her kids. But if husband's documents say all
to his wife's documents say all to hers, and then
wife survives husband by six days but then dies, then
she's deemed to have survived him. All his stuff then
would go to her. If not her, then to her

(23:31):
estate and then distributed to her estate. But her estate
said everything goes to her kids.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Not to his right, so his kids would be kind
of out of luck there.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, all depending on order of death and timing of death.
We typically in our documents, we usually put thirty days
as the limit for for this. So we expanded out
a little bits where it's more than one hundred and
twenty hours. It's a personal choice. Yeah, I don't think
I've ever had a client talk to me about like

(23:59):
change that. But it could be changed. But that's what
the law says. Law says five days unless you change it.
So I hope that was I hope that was interesting.
So with that, we're just about up to the news,
so please stick with us through the news. We have
some other things we want to talk about. We have
some other topics we want to get into. But again,

(24:20):
thank you so much for being with us here on
this Saturday morning. Come on back right after the news
for the second half of Life Happens Radio, and welcome back.

(24:43):
Thanks for sticking through the news. We appreciate it. It's
always I feel like this is a common theme song
when we come back when I'm on at least with
with Zach in the studio. So thanks Zach for cueuing
up the music. You're doing a great job. Don't like
your shirt though. Don't like your shirt, but congratulations of
the Eagles been being Super Bowl champ. So it pains
me to say it. I'm a Giants fan, but I

(25:04):
was very happy for Saquon, so I want that to
be known. Squon's my boy, and I'm a Penn State
football fan, so he's also also happy with that. Yeah,
Patty went to Penn State. So there's a lot of
sake que love in the studio, Zax clapping. So again,
thanks for sticking with us through the news. So again,
this is life happens. We talk about a state planning

(25:25):
when I'm on, we typically do long term care, we
do medicaid, We do you know, that kind of stuff.
We do asset protection, do a little bit of litigation, guardianship.
I don't particularly practice in those areas. And then we
do you know, I don't want to say basic a
state planning, but we do, you know, non tax planning
typically what I'm on, because tax planning means you have
a lot of money, like a lot a lot of money. Right,

(25:47):
the current exemption for New York state of state tax
is over seven million dollars. Federally, it's double that per spouse.
So federally, if you're single, it's fourteen million, if it's
if you're married, it's twenty eight million. And so so
stay tax is not typically something we're concerned about for
most individuals, So I don't focus on that, but we

(26:07):
do that work also in the office, So this is
a little bit of rundown of like who we are,
what we do. I do want to promote some programs
we have coming up. So we have been doing a
monthly Medicaid webinar series for over two years now, and
we call it Medicaid Monday. I think I've been on

(26:27):
everyone but one. I think because I did take a
vacation at point point. I know I was away for
one of them, but I think other than that, I'm
on every one of them. And our next one is
going to be on March tenth. They're always from twelve
to twelve thirty, so noon to twelve thirty, and it's webinar.
So again, you can jump on from your desk, you

(26:48):
can jump on from your house, you can jump on
from your phone. And this month it's going to be
me and Lou our founding partner, and we're going to
be talking about the big changes that are coming into
the consumer directed program. So for those that are unfamiliar,
it's a program that once you're approved for Medicaid, you
actually can enroll your own caregivers into MEDICAIDS system essentially

(27:12):
and get Medicaid to pay the aids that you have.
In lots of respects, this is absolutely necessary for people
to get home care. Lots of people live in remote
areas or they have just family members that have already
kind of agreed to be the caregivers. So this gives
them the ability to have their family members paid for
being their caregivers. It's a wonderful program. It's one we've

(27:36):
had to lean on much more heavily since the pandemic
because of just the overall lack of home health care aids.
And there's been a lot of changes that have been
coming with this program for a few months where essentially
they're taking all of these small agencies and condensing a
lot of the administration for this program under one big umbrella.
So there will be something called one single fiscal intermediary

(27:59):
for the entire set, and it's going to have some
other helpers along with it. There's a formal term for them.
I don't remember what it is, I apologize, but it's
essentially redoing the entire system of how financially that's all
going to work, and what's required to get enrolled into it,
who's going to oversee it in things, So luckily, for

(28:22):
everybody as knowledgeable as Lou and I are about the program,
we are very lucky to have with us another attorney.
Her name is Valerie Bogart. She is of counsel to
a group called the New York Legal Assistance Group. Valerie,
in my opinion, is probably the single most educated person

(28:44):
in New York State that I have ever seen on
anything to do with Medicaid. She is a phenomenal resource.
Every time we see her speak, I always learn many
things from her. And the fact that she's going to
be joining us for a half hour to give up
her time to do this is great and it's going
to be very educational, and I just hope a lot

(29:07):
of people can take away a lot of a lot
of new information and hopefully can help ensure that as
many people can stay on this program as they can
well it transitions to this new phase. So please, if
that sounds like something you'd be interested in or something
that you need to know about, just log on again
March tenth for Medicaid Monday with myself and Lou and Valerie,

(29:32):
and then we have another program, so just two days
later after the tenth, so obviously on the twelfth, which
is a Wednesday. Lou's going to be doing a program
at the North Chatham Free Library talking about just state planning.
It's more just talking about a state planning essentials, strategies
for building a legacy, planning for long term care. So

(29:54):
that's going to be at ten o'clock again at the
North Chatham Free Library. So if you're interesting in learning
more about that, you certainly can give us a call
or go to the website. So our office is five
one eight four five nine twenty one hundred, or you
can always email us at info at pierrolaw dot com.
So if you're interested in going to see Lou, sign

(30:15):
up go see the free seminar at the North Chatham
Free Library. All right, enough about that, so Patty, So
we talked a little bit about some celebrity stuff. We
talked about some cases. I think I have one more
quick admin thing to kind of talk a little bit about,
and then I found another. I found something else that

(30:37):
I think would be interesting to talk about in addition
to the day's topic. So we'll see how much we
get to. So this is the first show I've been on.
So they announced the new Medicaid numbers since the last
time I've been on. We we got some of them
early in January, but then we were waiting for the
federal poverty levels to come out. Well, all that's out now,

(30:58):
So we did have increes in our Medicaid numbers, so
our monthly income numbers went up. So if you're a
single person, the old number was seventeen hundred and fifty
two dollars of monthly income. That went up to eighteen
hundred and twenty dollars, So I went up sixty seven dollars,
so not a huge, not a huge increase, but again
an increase, so it increase is never bad. And then

(31:20):
our asset limit went from or sorry, let me do,
let me do the second part, so for a single
person went from seventeen fifty two to eighteen twenty. For
a couple it went from twenty three seventy one to
twenty four to fifty three, so it went up eighty
two dollars. So if you have both spouses on Medicaid,
both in the home, their combined income limit went from

(31:40):
twenty three seventy one to twenty four to fifty three.
Again eighty two dollars to the good resources or assets
went up from single person. Old limit was thirty one
thousand and one seventy five to thirty two thousand, three
forty six, so another twelve hundred twenty one dollars, so
again not huge, another twelve hundred dollars essentially you can

(32:01):
have to qualify for medicaid if you're a couple. Went
from forty two thousand, three hundred twelve dollars to forty
three thousand, seven hundred eighty one dollars, so up fourteen
hundred and sixty nine dollars almost fifteen hundred, So again
not the biggest jumps we've ever seen. That was a
few years ago where they essentially doubled. But again just
to put this in context, if you're in just about

(32:24):
any other state other than New York and now California
because they don't have an asset test, but if you're
in just about any other state, asset limits for medicaid
or two thousand dollars, so two thousand is way way
less than thirty two thousand and three forty six or
forty three thousand, seven eighty one. So there you go.

(32:45):
Figured that was good to throw out there. Did get
those finally, so another thing I found, so there is
a website. It's called trust and will dot com. We
don't always love online sources for things, obviously, But they
did a big time annual impact report. It's this study,

(33:09):
so it's a very large study. So it had ten
thousand respondents, which is a really big sample size, and
they came to some interesting conclusions that I thought would
be good to talk about on the radio. So, according
to this study, they found that fifty five percent of
Americans have no estate planning documents at all. Still, wow,

(33:30):
so forty five percent? Then do fifty five percent don't
have anything at all? And then they said only thirty
one percent of their respondents have established a will. So, again,
being like the over analytical person that I think I
tend to be, so a fifty five percent don't have anything,
that means forty five percent due, so a forty five

(33:53):
percent due. But and then only thirty one percent of
them have, like have a will. So does that mean
we have like what fourteen percent that just did like
a power of attorney and then nothing else or a
health care proxy and nothing else.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, that's interesting, does it not? Does it not explain that? No?

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Or at least not that I saw, right, I didn't
dive into all the numbers, but I'm just so it's
interesting to a degree because it's like, well, if you
did something right, if forty five percent of people did something,
does that mean that you didn't do a will when
you were doing the something that you did right?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Well, I mean no, I mean that's kind of I
can kind of believe that though, actually, because often we
have people come in that just do like powers of
attorneys and health care proxies and they pull offline yep.
I think those are a little bit more accessible and
easier for people to do as opposed to you know,
a will. Additionally, I think a lot of hospitals technically
offer health care proxy, so that could potentially sort of

(34:46):
skew the data because I think, oh, yeah, a lot
of people have at least you know, a healthcare proxy.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah. Well that's what I'm saying. Like, I'm not saying
that I don't believe it. I'm just trying to figure
out like what they're saying. That's all because it's it's interesting.
Like the way I think about it is, if you're
going to work with us, if or somebody like us,
you're going to do kind of a package where you're
going to get that healthcare proxty, you're going to get
the power of attorney, you're going to get the disposition
of remains, and then you're going to get a will.

(35:13):
You're not going to usually get one of those four
things or two of the four things. You're going to
get the four things, or maybe you're going to work
with somebody else. So I just thought it was interesting.
They also did some surveying and info collecting on wealth
and racial disparities, gender things. So here are some other

(35:36):
just interesting findings that I thought would be interesting to
talk about. So it says nearly one in five, so
about twenty percent, believe that they will leave nothing meaningful
behind when they pass, and over half of the respondents
think they'll leave fifty thousand or less to their beneficiaries.
What that's sad? Yeah, right, So one in five think

(35:59):
they leave nothing and more than half, so more than
so fifty one percent, let's just say, think they're going
to leave less than fifty thousand.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Well, nothing meaningful is what that said. And I guess
everyone has different definitions of.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
What meaningful is right. Well, and it's right, And that
was again being analytical about as well. I don't know
what meaningful means, right, because it's such a broad term.
But they That's why I thought the second part was
at least more of a talking point, because to say
you're going to leave less than fifty thousand is that's

(36:33):
at least putting some context on it, which again to me, again,
I don't want to say I don't believe it. It's
just it seems surprising, yeah, because I think most people,
or at least generally, I think the clients that we
work with, like lots of people have a house that's
worth more than fifty thousand dollars. So even if you
had nothing in the bank, you're saying that you wouldn't

(36:55):
have your house potentially. I that's I mean, I don't know, right.
That's why I just figured it was good to talk
about because I think most people right want to stay
in their house. They want to continue to live in
their house. They work very hard for their house. They
want to pass along in their house or the sale
proceeds from their house if they were to sell it.
And if you have a house, again, if you're in

(37:18):
the capital district where we are, if you have a house,
most houses are going to be more than fifty thousand
dollars worth of value even under the worst of circumstances.
So again it's just just an interesting finding. And then
another one, which again is I think interesting for different reasons,
said that financial anxiety peaks among both lower income groups

(37:43):
and those earning between five hundred thousand to a million
dollars annually, suggesting that wealth does not eliminate uncertainty. So
I think that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, I mean for very different reasons, right.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Right, If you don't make very much and you're seeing
the economy and everything that's going on in our world today,
I think it's I think everybody's a little uncertain. I mean,
that's what I'm saying. Like I was just talking to
my wife earlier this week, we ordered groceries for the house.
It had been a while, but like between the regular stuff,
the few add ons we needed, and then the fee

(38:21):
to have it delivered just because we couldn't get to
the store, our grocery bill for our house of three
people was just about five hundred dollars. Yeah. Yeah, and
it wasn't just eggs. So I understand that things are
costing more and just generally what everybody's been feeling about
but again it seems like the lowest of the low

(38:43):
are anxious about it, but people doing very well off
I think in comparison, are also very concerned. So again,
just an interesting finding. So why don't we do this?
We have some more interesting things from this survey I
want to go through, So why don't we hit our
last brake? So stick with us through the break, we'll
come back. We'll talk about some other interesting findings and
then maybe some tips for those out there if you

(39:04):
want to talk about planning and think about these things
before we wrap up the show. Stick with us. This
is Life Happens Radio, and welcome back. We're back from
our last break for Life Happens Radio. Thanks again for
being out there for listening. We very much appreciate it.

(39:26):
So let's get into this quickly because I do want
to actually get to the topic we were supposed to
talk about quickly before we end the show. So I
just thought some other things were very interesting here. So
this this, this makes me sad, but I'm a biased person.
I think you'll understand why I want I tell you this. So,
so twenty percent of Americans that again respond to this survey,
so twenty percent now trust AI generated legal advice more

(39:50):
than human attorneys. Wow, So one in five trust the
you know, trust the computers more than if that if
I tell them something hypothetically, that's a little sad, right,
That's that's that's a little worrisome to me. I'm not
saying that the AI isn't phenomenal and useful, but it's
dangerous if it's depending on how it's used. Yes, yeah,

(40:13):
you can't argue with the computer. I know.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
And also people need to consider that, like every state
has such different laws. I mean like I asked you
what the other day about what a magic wand provision
W Yeah, because we.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Because a client threw that out of us and she
was like.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
I found it on Google and I'm like, okay, well
I think that only exists in California.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, from what we looked at quickly didn't seem like
New York does exactly. That we found something that we
thought was on point with it. But yeah, no, it's
a very good point. And then so twenty percent trust
the AI more, thirty four percent trusted just as much.
Again not great for us, not great. So nearly one

(40:52):
in four. So let's say twenty five percent of millennials
and gen Z Americans prefer non family executive like trusted
friends are professionals over relatives, reflecting evolving views on family
trust and responsibility.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
That's an interesting take.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
It is, although what I was thinking for that, which
again I don't think it answers everything. But if you're younger,
right with the yourture for your millennial if you're a
gen Z person, like you're younger, A lot of clients
that we have, they usually slot their children and their
spouse into these things, into these roles, And if you're younger,
you probably don't have children that are old enough to

(41:34):
sit in those roles. Yet you may not have children
at all. But if you have children like I do,
like my daughter's four and a half, she can't be
my executor. At some point hopefully she can be, but
she like she could tell you, she would tell you
right now she probably could be, but she couldn't be.
And then and then then I obviously, like I have
a spouse right and for me, my spouse is on everything,

(41:56):
but like my mom and my in laws are typically
behind me, I spoused on a lot of our stuff
because our parents are still young enough where they're more
than capable of handling things if something happened. But but
you know, I'm wondering if that's maybe why they're going
to outside people, maybe more so than family, because you know,
maybe they wouldn't want their parents for some reasons, but

(42:17):
they might not have the spouse or the or the
children to sit in those spots. So don't know, just
the thought. And then last one, sixty two percent of
Americans believe pets deserve the same level of importance as humans.
And now again, I don't know if that's like a
I don't I don't want to say a mistake, but
the same level of importance or or importance because this

(42:39):
has the same level of importance, and that I think
I wouldn't agree with in.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
What capacity and important and what I'm just gonna confused
about that one.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Yeah, I think I think just generally that like if
you say same level of importance, it's like you're treating it,
or you're treating your pet or pets just as you
would either a spouse or a child or something like that.
And and I don't think I see that. I don't
see that with clients. I think pets come into the conversation.
People are concerned about their pets. They want to sure
their pets are taken care of, right, So we talk

(43:10):
about doing pet trusts, or leaving something specific as to
who's to get the pets, who's to care for the pets,
setting some money aside for the pets, maybe some even
special instructions about the pets. So to say that they're
not included in the plan that I see all the
time that they are, But to say they have the
same level of importance as a family member, I don't believe.

(43:30):
I don't agree with that. Like they're included, they're not
the same. There's difference there, all right. So we've only
got another eight minutes or so before the end. So
one of the one of the topic today was talking
about mistakes that we see in planning. So, I mean,
the biggest mistake that we see, probably more than any
we've kind of already touched on it, and it's not

(43:52):
having a plan, right. Whether it's because you're single, it
could be just because you're not sure that you need one,
because you're not sure you're going to leave very much,
whether you don't think it's just not important enough, whatever
it is, but not having a plan, that's the biggest
mistake at all of everything is not having one right.
You should have a plan. You should have a will.
You should have a power of attorney to help of

(44:14):
who would make your financial decisions if you couldn't. You
should have a healthcare proxy you can make your medical decisions.
Second one here, so Patty, you want to talk about
this one. Second one is failing to update your plan.
So what do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah, I mean I think a lot of people, you know,
if they do inn a state plan, they do it
once and they never consider it again. There are some
clients that we have that routinely come back to us,
you know, and have provisions and updates, but that's usually
because they're coming to us on their own accord. You know.
It's not really our job to reach out to people
after ten years and be like, oh, we did your planning,

(44:48):
you know, twenty ten, you know, how are things going?
And so I think people should you know, review their
state plan, especially you know in terms of you know
their agents and like their beneficiaries, because you know, things
change and you know their wishes may have changed, and
they may have even forgotten who they had you know,
listed in the first place.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, I mean, I pretty routinely see when clients come
in if they've done their plan ten twenty twenty five
years ago, you know, especially if they haven't worked with
us where they named maybe their spouses, their first person
and everything, but then they started dabling maybe their siblings
after that, right, because the kids weren't old enough. And
it's like, well, now, if you have kids that are

(45:30):
in their thirties, their forties, their fifties, right, there's no
reason the kids couldn't slot into the plan now.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
It doesn't mean that they're the right choice, or that
maybe you wouldn't want somebody in front of them, or
maybe you don't want them together. You know, there's different
considerations that go there, but just not having them involved
in the plan at all, that's not usually what people want,
unless there's special circumstances for that.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Right. Well, I had a case recently where I actually
was very glad that this client came to see us, because,
you know, through our process with him and updating his documents,
we solved and realized two things that were really important. One,
he had a Medicaid asset protection trust and he thought
that his house had gone in there fifteen years ago.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Oh, no, oh right, I remember this case. Yep.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Come to find out it never actually made its way
into his trust. Yeah, and so for the past fifteen
years he was thinking that his house had been protected,
and you know, unfortunately we had to break the news
to him that it did not happen. The prior attorney
did fail to do it.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, I would say, I want to make that clear.
We did not do the first plan. He came to
us to talk about maybe updating his plan. So when
he brought all of this to us, he again was
under this assumption that the prior attorney's office had had
funded his trust, and apparently they didn't, or at least
there's no proof that they did. So he's been under

(46:53):
the assumption for ten years that everything's been safe and
it isn't.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, which is a scary, scary thoughts. Reason why you know,
it's important to update and review your state plan. And
then you know, another issue we see is not using
trust wisely, not updating them, not funding them properly.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah. The plans only as good as as the pieces
that go into it and the funding that happens with
the trust or or other things. So you know, in
this instance, you know, he had a document. He had
a I think the trust like it had some issues,
but it would have been sufficient to at least protect
the house if something had happened to him. Yeah, but
the house never made it into the trust. So having

(47:31):
the document isn't really doing anything except he paid a
lot of money for a piece of paper that's not
accomplishing anything.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
I know, I know, I felt very bad for him
when we when we realized that.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, So that so that that goes hand in hand.
One of the mistakes listed here is failing to fund
a trust, so that goes to the importance of that.
And then one of the other ones that I feel
like I see more than more than I wish that
I did that, but I think that it's hard to
communicate well is either failing to consider or improperly handling

(48:05):
joint ownership. So, for instance, I had a lady that
we worked with just I think last week, and her
main assets are her house and her cash accounts. I
think she had a second property that she sold quite
some time ago, and they took all the money from
the second house sale they put it just in her
savings account and it's kind of just been hang out

(48:27):
in the savings account that if she needs something, she's
got some money. But it's like several hundred thousand dollars
of money. Now, whether you want to do that or
not and not have that money do something for you, right,
that's not our role. That's that's the role of a
financial planner. That's why you talk to somebody like Dave
who's on you know, around us on the radio. But

(48:48):
you know that aside. She when I asked her about
these accounts, they said, well, who's on these accounts with you?
Or is it just you? And she said, oh, my
daughter is on is a joint owner with me. I said, okay.
I was like, do you understand what that means? And
she said, well, it means she can write checks and
help me if I need some help with my bills.

(49:08):
And I said, yes, one hundred percent, that is true.
I was like, but do you understand what happens to
that money when you're gone? And she said, what do
you know? What do you mean? And I said, well,
you have five kids, I said, and we just talked
about how you want everything to get divvied up between
the five kids, and she doesn't want it going twenty

(49:28):
percent to each of them. She wants to give everybody something,
but she has a son who has some special needs,
so she has him getting the largest share, but all
five are going to be provided for. And I said, well,
if you pass away and your daughter is joint owner
on that account with you, then all several hundred thousand

(49:50):
dollars now belong solely to your daughter. They do not
go split like we just talked about. And she said, oh, well,
my daughter wouldn't wouldn't do the wrong thing with it.
And I said, I I tend to agree with you.
Your daughter seems very nice, and I've worked with your

(50:12):
family a little bit before. But what happens if something
happens to your daughter and now she's not the one
that's got the money, maybe it goes to her husband,
or her children or somebody else. I was like, would
you trust them as much? And she said, I hope so.
And I said, but this is why we probably don't

(50:32):
want to leave it this way. So the fact that
she hadn't considered that just shows why we needed to
talk about it. So with that, we're essentially at the
end of the show. That went quick, but so Patty,
thanks so much for being here. And I hope out there.
I hope you picked up some good things while we

(50:53):
spent our hour together. So thanks for listening to Life
Happens Radio on this Saturday. I hope you come back
to here next week and sign up for our seminars
that I talked about. We'll see you next time on
Life Happens Radio