Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Welcome to Life Happens. Are you prepared?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is our weekly radio program for individuals and their
families where we address the challenges.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
We all face as we age. We talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
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 educate and prepare you for
events like retirement, protecting your income and assets, paying for nursing,
home and home care, planning for special needs, drafting wills
and trusts, and planning for an untimely death, or maybe
even resolving disputes.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In and out of court.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Aaron Connor from Pure O'Connor and Strauss, joined by my
most frequent radio compadre, mister Frank Emming.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Good afternoon, Frank, or a good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
How you doing, Aaron, It's good to be back with you.
I feel like it's been a little while since they
put us together again.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I mean, we should have a stat sheet somewhere of like,
you know, the combinations.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We'd win that yes, by far the leader in the club,
ass of us, not even close. I mean you and
Lou I know, had quite a few years where you
guys were doing it a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, but that's a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I was to say that was really pre me more
than anything, right, which is a while ago at this point. So,
and I've done plenty with Lou, but I've certainly done
more with you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
But so we are elder law lawyers. State planning.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Frank obviously runs a Medicaid department and also does the
long term care planning. I do just about everything from
dabbling or you know, I wouldn't dabbling isn't a word
I like to use. But in taking high end plans
right and assigning them to people, to regular the state planning,
(01:35):
to normal long term care planning, to maybe some abnormal
long term care planning, you know, in taking again Medicaid
work for Frank.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
To do your favorite kind of work, take it in,
hand it away.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Hey, I'm honest in the console.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Me, I feel like we're not you know, this isn't
like inside baseball stuff that we can't talk about it.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
That's the best kind of work.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Take it in, take your problem and give it to
somebody else.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Perfect, And obviously I also do probate in litigation work,
whether that's uh while people are alive in the form
of guardian ships or maybe an accounting of a power
of attorney or postaff when it's trust in a state litigation.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So we got you covered.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, And I always tell people that you'd much rather
meet Aaron when he's in his like planning capacity rather
than his litigation capacity. Is correct, just generally he's going
to be nicer, the outcome is probably going to be
a little more assured, like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Absolutely. I mean, litigation is difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You you you know, nice guys in litigation don't really
work out very well. Yeah, right, Although that doesn't mean
we treat each other badly, No, there's a professionalism. We
have to take a hard line sometimes, which can be difficult.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Taking a hard line's not really that difficult for me though,
I don't know, it's just my personality.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I guess, yeah, that's kind of the default, I think generally.
That's why I say I always kind of warn people
it's like, you'd rather see Aaron on the planning side
and then the litigation side, and that he won't be
good to do without either one. But there should be
a preference preferences plan.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, absolutely so if you're a professional out there, if
you are in the financial space or you're an accountant.
I just want to let you know that we do
have our twentieth annual Intergenerational Estate Planning Conference coming up
on November fifth. That's for professionals. It's at the Opening
Capital Center during the afternoon. I have some good speakers,
(03:28):
especially about dealing with cryptocurrency, which you know, I've still kind.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Of avoided for myself because I just don't I don't
know if I.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
If you gambled the right way, it's done really well
for you.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It has it has no doubt about it. People have
made money on it. But I just long term, I
have no idea. So I'm more of a conservative person. Yeah, no,
it comes to that stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, I'd love to be able to, you know, kick
myself go back in time, make all the smart decisions,
and now have the benefits from all those.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, but I'd probably be getting rid of it, Honestly,
I say, But I'm not saying you should do that.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I'm not a financial advisor.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, but uh, but I know that's not how I
would work. I still find a lot of it very
anxiety driving. Sunestly, Yeah, so I know I would not
feel comfortable doing that, But again, that's not really our space.
That's why you have your financial refreshments.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
But I will say for me myself, I do enjoy
picking some stocks myself, and it's kind of like my
rotisserie baseball or whatever you want to call it, fantasy baseball.
I picked these and then I see how they do, right,
I guess it's not life changing.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I just think of that the highs are higher the
lows are lower because it has like actual stakes with it,
where it's like if you lose your fantasy league, like
the worst thing is you might get humiliated or have
to do something like, you know, embarrassing, but like it
didn't really have consequences.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Pretty bad punishments out there, right, Not that I'm going
to relay an They's.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Family show, Please be mindful of the Family Show.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But I just said, like, but if your stock the
camp goes from like money to zero, money like that
has that has consequences to it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Sure, So you know, I think one thing we hear
on a daily basis, or some of my daily basis
from clients is when we're talking about long term care,
is that it's not going to be me or if
I get there, I'm going to take care of myself, right,
or I'm going to put a pillow.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I mean, I'm not kidding. I'm going to put a
pillow over their face.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I mean, I'm not laughing.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I mean some people are joking, right, some people are
not joking.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I mean, so let me channel Lou for a second.
Lou would say to that person, because I've heard him
say it enough times that I think I can quote
him pretty well, is that the problem is when you
go to look for the pillow or you're going to
look for the gun or whatever it is, you're not
going to remember that you needed the pillow or that
you needed the gun, or where you put it or
whatever the whatever. The you know, the analogy is.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And I think that you know, not again to be
flipping about it, but a lot of people are like,
today's not the day. It's not bad enough yet, and
by the time it gets bad enough you don't have
that capacity.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
It's too late.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And also, to be clear, I'm not aving cating for
one side or the other. I'm just saying that this
is something that people talk about with us, and you know, yeah,
whatever you believe, you believe, and that's okay, right, But
recently there have been some kind of strange stories, and
(06:19):
there was a story in South Carolina where an eighty
two year old woman walked into the nursing home and
shot her husband.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Like, well, he was a patient in the nursing home. Yes, okay,
just try to set the stage.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
By so she's eighty one, yep, right now. She did
not kill herself, which I would think would probably most
people in a scenario like that would do.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Right, But again not a judgment where.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, I feel like if I'm playing the odds, I'm
playing that.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Card, right, I mean, eighty one? Do you want to
go to prison? Probably not that you ever really want
to go to prison, don't get me wrong, but.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And this week's life happens, do you want to go
to prison?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Well, I mean life happens. You're in prison, you have
a plan now, Although they did just okay, a reboot.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Of prison Break, So I didn't know that, so I did,
weirdly enough, and I've watched the season of that show,
and I don't know what happened after that, But I
might go back got out, Say, I might go back
and rewatch the whole thing now, because apparently it's coming back.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
They get out, then they got put back in and
then they got out.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
I don't know would they could be a limited premise,
but apparently not.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
New team, new prison, a new break.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
So to just keep locking it up and he keeps
getting out.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah hey yeah, but in this case, I guess that
the woman left a note behind that said to you all,
this has been too much for me. I wish I
could do it with the wonderful family. We have so
many good friends. We can't have a life without someone,
and that someone can't be me. And I am not
strong enough or smart enough to do all of this.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So pretty sad scenario.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, heartbreaking, right because again, not to make judgment calls
about stuff that clearly we're not qualified to make. But
I mean, think of what place you have to be
and to think that that's the best avenue forward, right right,
more than anything, right.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So, and I think it makes you think that one
whatever support she was getting from the outside world certainly
wasn't enough or there should have been maybe some signals
that she needed some even mental health, right yeah. I
mean as a country, I think in general, we don't
deal with mental health very well. And you know, people
(08:38):
don't talk about it, right, especially older people. Something to
talk about, and clearly some mental health support here probably
would have went a long way.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Oh yeah, I mean I think I think we're trying
our best at society to take some of the stigma
away from people seeking health for mental health issues and
other related problems. But certainly, if you want to play
you know, fortune teller if you will, or whatever, if
you go back to where those people were in their
(09:08):
life at the time of like what the world looked like, right,
that was coming from a time where you didn't talk
about this stuff, or there weren't diagnoses for things or both,
you know whatever, right, and just you know, if you've
never known any different, how would you know that it's
maybe okay that you feel the way that you feel.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right, right, And I think everybody in her situation would
feel stressed. Right if you've been married for a long time,
in your first of all, your spouse isn't in the.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
House, it's a huge change.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Right on a morning basis, on an evening basis.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, I mean, I figured it was gonna come up
in somehow, So this seems like a good segue. So
not to make this about me, but I always joke
I'm an only child, so everything's about me anyway. But
I recently lost my grandfather at the end of July,
and then my grandmother just passed within the last week
or so, and knowing that they were to be married
(10:01):
for seventy three years if he had lived just another
few weeks, seeing what that looked like for my grandmother,
knowing that she had literally never lived her adult life
without her spouse, and then living to be ninety one
without him was something that she just wasn't really going
to do well with, right, because she didn't know it, right.
She got married when she was nineteen years old. She
(10:22):
went from living with her parents to her or to
her husband, right, she never had to be a functioning
adult without her husband, and when it finally was time,
she was ninety one dealing with her own issues, and
it just didn't didn't.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Go very well, right. And I mean, you can't really
blame her, No, of course.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I zero blame. It's just that's just that's her reality, right, right.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So yeah, and so from obviously we're lawyers, we can't
really help from the mental health standpoint, right, sure.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I mean I feel like a counselor a good part
of the time, depending on the type of casey we're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Of course, Yeah, I say this all the time that
in consults, I say, this isn't legal advice, this is
life advice, right, and then depending on the situation, I
give them some advice over because we've been at this
for a long time and we've seen a lot of
bad Since we've seen right, we've seen better scenarios and
peace of mind, whether it's because you've got the plan done,
(11:18):
whether it's because we've been able to help you with
a care solution, or whether we've been able to you know,
if it's a state administration or trust administration, we've been
able to help you close at least a financial chapter
and then deal with whatever you have to deal with
every else. But if you don't do those things, you
don't get to deal with the emotional. So those are important.
(11:40):
But there's certainly things, you know, and obviously we don't
know what was in place, but that could have maybe
been done to help these people from a planning standpoint.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Now I don't know if he was home.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Care was a possibility, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And you know, I think probably now is a good
time to take a break because we can talk about
when we come back, maybe what could have been done
to make a situation better for the spouse. Sure, right,
obviously we don't know whether that would have changed the
scenario or not. But when we come back, we'll talk
about planning for home care and how that can.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Assist a spouse in this situation. This is Life Happens Radio.
I'm Aaron Connor from pierro O Connor and Strauss, and
we'll be back right after this. Welcome back to Life
Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, Piro Connor and Strauss, joined by
my partner Frank Hemming. We were talking about an unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Scenario where recently a woman walked into the nursing home
and shot her husband, feeling that basically overwhelmed for sure,
and feeling that things weren't getting better and that she
couldn't really survive on her own.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Just to put in perspective that.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
This is not necessarily an outlier, I don't think it's
a commonplace, right, but just this week in year old
man shot his ninety three year old wife in an
assisted living and then turned a gun on himself.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Okay, yeah, so that we have two nationalized versions of
a similar story.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
If you will, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So again, certainly some mental health help will probably be
a good idea, but also physical help probably would have
alleviated a lot of this.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
You know, so we do a lot of home care plans.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I think that's fair to say, right, there are limited
circumstances in where home care can be particularly challenging.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Right, Yes, you're very rural.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yes, and look if your kid lives with you and
they're going to be the caretaker great right or in
law or grandchild whatever, Right, But rural just tends to
be problematic from getting a care person in place.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Maybe you can have a living right. That's something that
isn't utilized a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
If you can find one and they authorize it, yes.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Or you pay for it, right, or you're there's some
com yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I mean money is always the best answer or always
an answer, I don't say best. It gives you always
an answer, yes, it's always an answer, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
And gets you to the front of the line quicker, Yes, right.
Home care can be particularly challenging if you're a two
person assist.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, that's that's kind of a it's a really hard
barrier to overcome because Medicaid is as good or as
bad as.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
It can be.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
They're only going to give you one person, and unfortunately,
if you need to then either you need to be
the second person, provide the second person, whether that's the
you know, the the spouse, the child, the grandchild, the friend,
the neighbor, whomever, or you have to pay for the
second person. So I mean, if you go from paying
for two people to paying for one person, well that's
still a pretty big financial win, but it's still going
(14:55):
to be a pretty significant financial outlay if you're then
having to pay that person for the amount of.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Care that the loved one needs.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
So that usually isn't something a lot of people can
financially stomach very easily without it severely impacting kind of
the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Right right, any other scenarios you feel like that home
care doesn't work very.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Well, I mean, failure to locate AIDS has always been
a challenge, right now. Some of that goes rural, some
of it's not. I mean, it's just not as simple
as that. Unfortunately. The other thing is dementia Alzheimer's can
get very challenging, yes, because you could physically have either
an AID or a companion, you know, second person with
(15:36):
the individual, even if it's twenty four hours a day essentially,
but if they become a wandering risk, just a general
danger to themselves because there's just the lack of understanding
those two what is good behavior and what isn't Some
of that gets really challenging. And it might not even
because you It may not be because you cannot provide
the person to be with them, right.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Sometimes demensia Alzheimer's patients become islent for a period of time, right,
which is always been a problem.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So, I mean, so that's the kind of thing like
where sometimes it's just not a good scenario, and it's
not usually for the reason that you'd think, right. So,
I think a lot of people generally assume it's either
we can't find the people or we can't afford the people, right,
and that those are I think more common. But sometimes
you do have the scenario where it's just it's not
a good scenario, right, you know, when you take those
other aspects off the table.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
But I would say for many people, home care is
a very good plan, especially early.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
If you do the planning to want to have that
be the outcome, yes, right, you know, I think I
think just generally speaking, just about like anything I think
we talk about, it's making sure that you have that
plan in place to set you up for success. And
if you have the plan built that that's the outcome
that you want, the likelihood of success just goes up so.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Much higher and so much faster.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Correct, because when you when you got the house on fire,
that's not the time to be making all the plans.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Like we like to say, well, right, frankly, you're not
making plans. You're trying to come up with.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
So you're reacting to the problem, right.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yes, you really need to be proactive, and whether that
means having some form of insurance right, Like, typically in
the last five to ten years, I don't see people
ensuring the entire risk because it's almost impossible to do
that now.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
From a financial.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Standpoint, I see people taking you know, maybe a long
term care policy that's going to pay fifty thousand dollars
a year or something to offset.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Yeah, and I always feel that.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Their income they can pay that way.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I always feel very conflicted about giving advice on those
types of situations to a degree because it always feels
bad as the planning person in the room to say
you've not made a good decision, right, because they clearly
thought about it, they sought that advice, They've put money
towards trying to enact something that they thought was a
good idea. But just when it comes to the actual
(17:59):
financial reaction of the situation, what's that going to do?
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Well?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Then they have to be realistic about that. What does
that get you?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
And I see more that might pay, Like let's say
five thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, right, Okay, you can be at home and have
five thousand dollars a month cover you know, a limited
amount of care. But if you're just getting right at
right involved, right at the start, that might be the
difference between you having to go into your own assets
or not, right, and it might set you up for
prolonged success because you're not having to take big chunks
out right at the start.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Generally, I think what the thought process is, and I'm
not evaluating it one way or the other. Is that
that plus my income right sure, probably.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Keeps me at home?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Right?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I think that.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Hopefully when you're older, you know, and again, if you're a.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Couple, you have to look at both sides of that, right, Yep,
is I'm older, right, so not a lot older, but
I'm older than my spouse, And so if my income
goes away, does she have enough income? Well the answer
is probably yes, right, So we could use my income
to pay for me, right, and I'm sure she'd be
happy to have me out of the house.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
So you have a different problem.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But you know that kind of thing that all needs
to be thought about, because if your income goes away,
what does the other person's income have to pay for?
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And that might be property tax, it might be you know,
lots of things that your income had been paid for.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yeah, And not to not to get sidetracked, but it's
because it's related to this. I think just a very
general statement might be helpful here. And that's if you
have long term care insurance and you start to be
in a position to maybe use it, use it. Yes,
It's crazy how many people walk into the office where
they have a policy that they've been paying to for
usually a pretty long period of time, correct, where they
(19:43):
haven't started utilizing it. It's like why, like you have
it for this reason, like why wouldn't you use it?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And some of them are partnership policies.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Right, So start the clock, right, you want to get
that spent down. I mean, it's it's really unfortunate that
you got into a position to need it right, right,
because I think a lot of times when people purchase insurance,
some of the ideas it's there if I need it,
hopefully I never do right, right, So I guess it's
unfortunate that life is thrown into the curve ball that
you need to use the policy. But like that's literally
there to help you in this circumstance, please use it,
(20:16):
And a lot of them, you know, just generically speaking,
a lot of them, like they'll do you want it
to pay in your premiums anymore if you start accessing it,
right though, right, So not only they give you money
and you stop giving them money. That that sounds okay.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And all of these policies have what's called an elimination period, yes, right, yep.
So if you don't start the elimination period, you never
get the benefit.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Then it's not going to help you until you get
through your your period, which is thirty sixty, ninety or
one hundred days most.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Of the time ninety to one hundred. Yeah, I've seen shorter,
but most of the time ninety one.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yes, say, if we're going to take a bet, it's
usually ninety or one hundred, but yes, it could be
thirty one hundred, usually on the upper upper tail of that.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I don't think I've ever seen one higher than one hundred.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Yeah, I don't. I don't think I have either.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
But but again, like, just use the thing that you have, right,
or at least try to get advice really quickly to
make sure to see if it makes sense to use
the thing, right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And I guess the only delta I could see is
if you have a limited pool of money. Right, So
more recently, you were signing up for a pool of money.
Let's just say you're paying a premium and at the
end you get five hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Dollars of benefit.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Fine, right, Sure, And some people, I think, in those
circumstances become reluctant to use it because they don't want
to run out of that.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
But generally speaking, that's at least two.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Years in a nursing home, right, Yep, probably closer to
three if you have any real income. So most people
that's not really an issue. Most people don't live in
a nursing home for that period of time. Now I'm
not saying they don't. Unfortunately, my wife's grandmother had to
mention I think she was in a nursing home for
eight years. Right, So you know, you always have to
do kind of a cost But if you have that
(21:50):
period of time and you haven't done a plan, we
can come up with a plan to probably save.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
A lot of assets.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, but that buys you some time to kind of
get through the period where the plan hasn't worked, or
as it were, get or you know whatever however you
want to phrase it.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That's right. So having one thing that a small long
term care policy will help you. It will give you
dollars to throw at AIDS though as well.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yes, right home health care is yeah, I mean I
think the scenario I was more talking about is because
I've seen this more than I wish that I had
or have obviously, is people walk in and you know,
they get one hundred dollars a day, let's say, right,
so one hundred dollars a day, and their loved one needs, yeah,
twelve to twenty four hours a day of care and
use it, and it's like one hundred dollars a day
(22:34):
is going to get you maybe three to four hours
if you're lucky.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
I mean, is it helpful. Of course, it's helpful.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Having money is better than not having money, But how
much is that really helping the bottom line situation?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
It's not making a huge debt in it. You have
a much bigger longer term problem here than just doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Exactly, and you need to be mindful of that.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So I think if we've just said anything, is that
that no, two situations are exactly like I think when
people come in, they think that we have a cookie
cutter solution for them. That's not to say that two
people might not have the same solution, but more often
than not they don't.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Yeah, right, I mean you changed three facts on what
we just said, our plan could be entirely different, right, And.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I mean if there's a spouse, things can be different.
If they're you know, if there's a disabled child, things
might be different, ye, right. If there's property owned by
multiple people, things might be different. So there's there's so
many factors that you would think of things that you
would never think.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Are a factory, right, or a child is blind.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Right yep?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
But not death?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Sorry, sorry, nope.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I don't know what the what you know what the
rule is for that purpose. But so we're coming up
on the news, all right. We when we come back,
we're going to continue to talk about accessing home care
and how that would work and why that could be
beneficial in a situation like those we've talked about. I
am Aaron Connor from Peer O'Connor and Strauss and we'll
be back right after the news Welcome back to Life
(24:01):
Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, Pierre Connor and Strauss joined by
my partner Frank Hemmick. We are talking about home care
as a solution for adult care needs. Before we get
into that again, I just want to say a couple
of things that November tenth, Frank and I will be
doing a Medicaid Monday.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Which makes it extra special. But in all seriousness, we're going.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
To talk about what to do when you get denied
or you don't receive what we feel you should have received,
whether that be hours or usually hours.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
But those are usually the big fights these days. I mean,
I can't say we've never at least threatened to go
to hearing over a penalty situation with a chronic care
application something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
It's just become determinations once in a while.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Yeah, we haven't really had to do that, thankfully.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So Frank and I will be doing that Medicaid Monday.
It's a webinar on November tenth, noon to twelve thirty.
If you want to sign up for that, you can
go to purolaw dot com under the events tab. We
also have for professionals, financial advisors, accountants, anyone in the
(25:16):
wealth space, our Intergenerational Estate Planning Conference where we talk
about assets strategies and avoiding a state tax and how
to plan for maybe some tricky assets.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
You own a business, what are you going to do?
And this year we're also going to talk about crypto
because you know, we're cool crypto bros actually wearing a.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Puffy vest, Oh are we? Okay?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Okay, but no, But it's an important part of what
people own now as assets, digital assets in general. You know,
sometimes we have people with copyrights all of that type
of thing. So if you're interested in that and you're
in those spaces, that's November fifth, from twelve thirty to
six thirty at the Capital Center, and again you just
go to our website to get some more information about that.
(26:04):
Frank and I were talking about a couple of sad
situations where people had kind of taken the solution into
their own hands.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I guess I would.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Say, and uh, and maybe you know, obviously we don't
know all the facts of those situations, but if we
were dealing with an aging couple coming to us, we
wanted to talk about what we could do maybe to
avoid these outcomes.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Right, yeah, sure, I mean the first I don't alway
say the first, but I thought that I had as
you were going through the stories, was you know, we
don't really know. Is this a is this a mental
illness problem? Is it a stress problem? Is that a
you know, is it a financial stress problem? Is it
a physical health problem? Is it a loneliness? I mean,
there's a lot of stuff could be all those, right, right,
(26:49):
I mean, who.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Am I to say?
Speaker 3 (26:50):
But I guess you know, Unfortunately, the way that I
always kind of phrased this to clients when we're working
together is it may seem heartless in the moment, but
like we kind of have to look at it from
the financial side, because those are the kind of levers
we can help pull and right and manipulate in things
to to help the situation.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I mean, to be frank, I can't fix your emotional.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Right exactly, like no one, No one can, right, Like,
that's why you have to do their own work. And
now you can see help for that and get counseling
and all the kind of stuff. But ultimately that's going
to fall a lot to the person for for help
with that. So when we're counseling people, we have to
kind of look at the financial pieces because those are
the things we usually can help with the most right
with the best results. So, I mean so if this
(27:31):
was a a you know, a thought by by O
either of these of these spouses of like the financial
burden just was gonna was just going to you know,
take their life away essentially, and there were no outcomes here.
I mean that that one hundred percent, at least in
New York, you know, with the with the rules we
have and the abilities that we have.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
That's just not true.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
As long as you get out in front of it correct,
even if it's even if it's at the last moment,
there's typically things that can be done too not not
have complete financial ruin.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Correct, you know, Yes, New York's look, we all have
our issues with how the State of New York might
do certain things right. Maybe different mine or different than yours,
or yours are different than whatever. Right, I can say
from a medicaid perspective, there are rules in New York
that make it more favorable to a New York resident
(28:23):
than they do to make it in other states.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, just about all of them, right, I mean, you know,
without saying blanket statements, you know, there's very few that
probably can compete with a lot of things that we
have here.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Right, even just from your basic asset limit r right,
I think the only state with a higher basic asset
limit is.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
California, right, because they don't have one, right, which is
they got they got away with theirs, right, So they
don't have one unless that's changed or we're inaccurate, and
we're not California attorneys.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Right. Generally speaking to my knowledge, they don't have an
asset limit. So but other.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Than that, I'm I don't know anyone even close to
ours at thirty two thousand that change.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Right, And we're not talking like bank rolling.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
No.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
But I mean again, most places it's instead of instead
of thirty two thousand, it's two thousand if you're single,
it's three thousand if you're married, right, Right, So the
difference between thirty two thousand and three and two thousand
for a single person. I mean, that's a pretty sizable
difference a lot. Yeah, thirty thousand. Yeah, that's a big difference.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, it is. And it allows you to pay for
certain things, right, Yeah, I mean I'm not talking about care.
I'm talking about like, if your hot water heater goes,
you would have money in the bank to do something about.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
It, or you need to you need to do a
car repair, right, roof is leaking. Yeah, you need some clothes,
you need some furniture.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I mean, I mean for two thousand, you know you're
gonna be hurting.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Yeah, I mean, and.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Most people's income is higher than that too, I know.
And now again income and assets are different things in
the medicaid world, yes, right, but if you get five
thousand dollars of income and you spend two thousand of
it in a month and you got three thousand an
asset for the next month, yeah you.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Got a problem. Yeah, you got a problem.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So like in that in that case, again, it's always
interesting kind of just see client reactions to this, but
generally with medicaid, you know, we usually are pivoting from
a saving mentality to a spending mentality is as crazy
as that sounds, because a lot of time you want
to be spending money, right, you just want to be
doing it smartly and appropriately.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But my wife is looking forward to the spending mentality.
I think she's there already.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I shud her for you.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
But it's just it's just But that's why, right, Because
as crazy as it sounds, like, if you had that scenario,
you'd be better served to spend the extra thousand dollars
stay on benefits exactly, rather than keep the thousand dollars
lose benefits, right, which is which is nuts, But that's
how it works, well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I mean sadly, Yeah, you can take the thousand dollars
to the casino and lose it. You had to spend it,
and they would not Medicaid would not have any.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Recourse as long as you can prove that you spent
that money on yourself and you just hand it to somebody.
And in most respects so if you, I mean, you're
allowed to make bad financial decisions.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
But I mean we've had to stay ablish gambling losses
on more than one occasion.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yes, we had one within the last I don't know
a year or so where it was like a sizeable
amount of money that he lost at the casino.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
But Bingo cash he wanted to do it.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
She wanted to do it, and we proved that they did,
and they didn't penalize them because again, they're they're allowed
to do things like that. It's just you have to
be gambling for yourself.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
I say, exactly, they don't get to second guess your
bad decisions. Yes, from a I mean mentally they might.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
They can't get eligibility for eligibility purposes.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
They can't be like, oh, you shouldn't spend one thousand
dollars on a lamp.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
That's dumb.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well it might be right, I prove you did it right,
and if you have the lamp, right, yeah, and you're like,
I love lamp.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, I was saying, I'm thinking it's it's that or
it's it's the like lamp from like.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Christmas story, right, But I was more, you know, ron.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, no, no, you know, you know there's only something
there's only so many famous lamps there.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
But if you're a concert floutist, right and you buy
an expensive flute, well so be it, right.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Sure, but somebody needs to do the jazz flute. It's too.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I tell people all the time that you have to
suspend logic because the whole it's illogical. So much of
it is ill a lot of it is right, you know,
because in a different world, you'd probably think that if
you made bad expenditures, they would penalize you for that, right,
So many people and I clearly bad expends, yeah, I mean,
(32:36):
it's a scale that.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
So many people get concerned when they're saying, well, we
paid two thousand dollars for a recliner, Okay, so for
who from that person?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
You're good, right, right. It's spending money on yourself or
your spouse is typically always good, right, as long as
we can prove that's what you did, right. So when
you start spending on other people that it gets you
in trouble.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Right again, and then you know, can be a fine
line too. So and a lot of people don't understand
that you have to prove your eligibility right. Yes, you
don't walk in and get.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
It not anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
We had we had a bit of a grace period,
but some of that during COVID because they just they
you know, they waived so many rules just to try
to get people assistants during the public health emergency, where
if you would essentially a test that you were eligible,
there wasn't really much that they would do look back
wise and things to actually find out if that was
true or not.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And that also got some people.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
We did not We did not operate that way, no, right.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Because a lot of people attested who weren't eligible.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Right, So we did not operate that way.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
But there was a time like where it was a
lot simpler just to get your paperwork pushed through, yes
and things. But that's that's time has been passed. That
time has passed because we're no longer in the public
health emergency.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
So yeah, it's clear.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
It's clearly on the applicant to prove eligibility, and if
you don't, they are going to deny you.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
That's just that's how it goes.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
That's right. So you know, and along nursing home Medicaid,
that's even more onerous. Right, So with.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Home care in New York, at least for now, right,
you can do a lot of things to become eligible quickly. Yes,
it doesn't mean it's necessarily that you shouldn't do it
ahead of time, right, Yeah, because we do have a
pending look.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Back and going to say, let's and then we need
to expand here, because sure, I know what you're talking about,
and you know what I'm talking about. Right, Let's make
sure everybody knows what we're talking about. So there still
is no look back for home care for Medicaid purposes
in New York. So if you need home care, we
can do just about whatever we want to make your
assets disappear. We usually use trust for those things.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Sometimes we use a spouse, sometimes we do lots of things.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Right, we have every appvenue available to us, and there's
no look back, so it doesn't really matter what we
do because they can't look back to see what you've
been doing with your finances.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Just when you currently apply. Are you eligible? Right?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
If you are financially they approve you. If you're not,
then they deny you. But you know, it's relatively limited
in what they can do and look at and give
you a problem about Nursing home is not the same
because it does have the five year lookback that's been
in place for a very long time now, and we
anticipate that sooner rather than later, there will be a
(35:20):
two and a half year look back put on home
care because there was the law passed in twenty twenty
to institute that change. It just has been delayed and
delayed and delayed off an offset because of either the
public health emergency or now I think it's really just
New York State implementing the changes they would need to
make to an institute that look back. Can't say for
(35:41):
certain if it's going to happen or not. It's much
safer for us to assume that it will at some point,
probably sooner rather than later. But as we sit here
right now, still no look back. So again, doing planning
to think that it's going to be a reality is smart.
But if you have someone in your life that didn't
do any plans or planning and now needs home care,
(36:02):
we're still very We have a lot of robust things
that we can do to make them eligible, usually within
a month or two, but that's likely going to change, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
And.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
We really have no idea what that implementation is really
going to look like. Yeah, I mean we know what
the rules are kind of for, we know what we should.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Know, ye be clear.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Yeah, for large pieces of it, I think we either
know or we could take very educated guesses. But there
are holes kind of in some of it, and then
that there's just going to be a lot of logistical
challenges to it. Like I can tell you counties are
over or counties are understaffed, overworked right now, and when
this change takes effect, this will drastically change their workload
(36:45):
for any case that comes out like across their desk,
And I don't know how they're going to do with that.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, well, I think one of the interesting things is
if you end up doing home care no notes like
we do notes now.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Right, which we've always kind of thought that's likely the
best avenue we'd have to do.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So to explain, if you do no planning and you
come to us and let's say mom needs a nursing home. Yep,
let's just say mom has five hundred thousand dollars. Okay,
we're going to exempt the thirty.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Roughly, right, four seventy right, maybe prepay a burial, okay,
all right, Then figure out what our income is, what
our cost of care is, and do a note right
where essentially half money goes out and half goes to
the nursing home.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
It's not always an exact number, right, but roughly.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Usually in the ballpark, right, So we're talking. So there
we're talking.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
We're saving two hundred and thirty thousand, roughly, we're losing
to thirty we're saving to thirty.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Right, if you do get out in front of it
five years ahead of time, you save it all.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
For home care, I'm not sure that we are going
to have the same cost of care every month. That's
going to be tricky.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
No, it's best we're going to have is current or
you know, most recent month, or at least best esthenate
of next month.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I mean, but if people go as people say downhill, right,
or their condition worsens, they're going to have a problem.
Y's their cost of care is going to go up yep. Right,
And with notes, income goes into the note. Is that
how it's gonna work with home.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Care or with a pool trust situation? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Right, So I mean I can use the pool trust
after the note.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Is up right, that's I mean, it's it's got some
weird nuances to it that we don't know yet, and
or at least we we know as much as we know,
and there's some things that we don't no guidance.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Right at this point. Right, It doesn't mean there won't
be guidance. But all right, I think now it's a
good time to take a break.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
We come back.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
We'll talk about utilizing home care, what we can do
maybe to augment the home care, those types of things.
Americ Connor, This is Life Happens Radio, Pierre O'Connor and
Strouts and we'll be.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Back right after this.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Welcome back to Life Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, Peri, O'Connor,
and Strauss joined my partner Frank Hemmick, talking about you
stay at home, you get in some support that you need,
probably aging in the place that you want to be, right,
not a facility unless unless you want that, right, right,
I mean, look, if you want a facility, boom, we
(39:18):
got you.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Right, It's rare.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
But I can't say no one would want to. Most
people probably don't, right.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I mean, I think one of the most hilarious cases,
if from our perspective, was when we had a husband
and wife that demanded to be in separate nursing homes.
Right well, they did not want to be in the
same nursing home.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's it was.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
It was a sad story ultimately just because the reason
behind the request. But yes, we did have a scenario
where husband and wife both needed facility and Dad didn't
want to be in the same facility as mom.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Right, Mom wasn't very nice to him anymore.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Right, So some things you know can't make it up. No,
truth is really stranger than fiction generally speaking. So we've
been talking about what you have to do to access
home care, right, And I think one of the undervalued
things of access and care, whether that be in a
(40:13):
facility or at home, but I think more predominantly at
home is interaction.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Sure, a lot of elderly people are isolated, and people
who are isolated have more tendency to become depressed. Maybe
they're sitting there watching the bad news all the time, right,
I mean that can be something that people do.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
And become more and more isolated.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
It's not good, right, And isolation also not good for
mental acuity.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I am not a doctor, clearly, but I watched my
grandmother do crossword puzzles.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I do puzzles. I do all sorts of puzzles.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I like puzzles.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I mean what we do really is puzzles to.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Putting them together in different ways and problem solving. But
I think that helps keep your brain strong. Sure, it's
always good to be using new words, right.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Like my daughter who's eleven, when I do something that
she doesn't like, she now likes to say that the audacity.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
So I mean, it's it's good. So quick, quick shout
out to Elena. It's I'm assuming it's Elena that's doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's Lily.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's Lily. Okay, fine, all right, Lily. Uh next time
unmitigated gall All right, there you go. How dare he
have the unmitigated gall to do whatever he's doing?
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Or sometimes I'm diabolical, you know. So, I mean I
kind of just feel like the villain and inspector gadgets
in his face we never saw, but you know doctor claw.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Yeah, so you swivel around hold like a cat.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
But I might. I don't want to give away my secrets.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
But you know, learning is always good, whether that be reading, right,
I mean, in today's world, it could be watching documentaries
or videos on YouTube, right, reputable.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
If there's one thing that I feel like we don't
have a shortage of, it's entertain options if you have
the internet.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Right, or but it can be education. Yeah, I mean,
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But I've always liked searching for ships underwater, right.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
I always thought that was cool. Okay, I don't personally
want to die of anything.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
I could watch people do it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
And you know, my daughter will actually watch that with me.
She finds it interesting.
Speaker 5 (42:22):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
But you can learn things from like that, or maybe
you like animals, right and you watch but all of
those keeping your mind going helps keep your body going.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, Like, I know it's not nearly as cool as
I think yours, but uh, I know when I was
growing up, I had a computer game for uh, where
in the world is Carmen San Diego? And they would
always give you clues as to where your next location was.
You got to be chasing after this nice woman, relieve, right,
And I feel like because I played that game a
lot when I was younger, I knew like all the
(42:53):
flags for all the country, sure is. One of the
one of the clues they'd always give you was a
flag and they'd be like, well, what flag does this
country go to? Or you know, which which country does
his flag belong to? And for a long time I
knew a lot of flags, right, And you know, was
it life changing? Probably not, but I'm sure that came
in handy a few times, like in school growing up
of like oh yeah, like that's that's Germany's flag or
(43:13):
that's Italy's flag or whatever it was. And I learned
it because I was just playing a game. But it
wasn't just strictly just my numbing button pushing. There was
there was thought there.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, thank you for putting that theme song by I
think Rockapella in mind.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
I wouldn't have known that. I know that I can
think of the song, but I didn't know who did it.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
So and a guy went to law school with who
grew up like.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
In Westchester County, okay one, and you know, you could
pick somewhere to go.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yep, he picked New York City and he's and he
was from basically New York City. I mean, just all right,
I mean it's just joice, it's a miss.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Okay, Yeah, I think he would tell you it was a.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Miss if you're allowed to do bad things or stupid things.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Right, we were just talking about its discussion ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Right, if you win, don't.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Pick yeah, probably fair.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Right, probably not Buffalo either, but you know.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
If you like the Bills and you like wings, then
go for it. But you know, most people probably wouldn't
pick Buffalo if no, depending on the options.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Not all but yeah, but anyway, so.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
I digress.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
It's also I think important to say physically active to
the extent that people can. Right now, what we actually
see is spouse is providing a lot of physical care.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Yes, that type of.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Physical activity is not necessarily what I'm talking about, right,
I mean, because it's for a lot of getting someone
in and out of the shower, you know, helping them
do certain things is or I mean I've seen cases
just like in my neighborhood where the husband goes downhill
and the wife's out there mowing the lawn. Yeah, now
(44:55):
that's actually probably better physical activity. But depending on how
old you are, that might not actually be the right
type of physical activity for you either.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
Well.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
I mean, like I met with a lady just yesterday
and she has her husband in the house and we're
trying to do some stuff for to help them, and
she said, you know, to some degree, I don't want
an aid to come in to help me because I
want to take care of him. She was a nurse,
so she feels very capable from a medical standpoint that
she can handle it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
And people want certain level of privacy, I think too.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
But on the other hand, she does want some help
with the housekeeping and the lawn maintenance and all that
kind of stuff because she's having to do all of it.
And I said, you know, why don't we get a
professional professional health care advocate, somebody like we worked with
with our sister company of her home, somebody like that,
to come in and really do like a deep dive into, well,
(45:43):
what things can we help you with?
Speaker 4 (45:45):
If you don't want help on the care side, what
can we help you with?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Or sometimes it's better to hear this isn't a good
idea from a qualified professional knows it's really not a
good idea because I know how I personally feel about it.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
There are I don't think that's a great scenario, right,
But I'm not a medical professional and I'm not trained
to be one, And there are, but there are people
that are, right, and I'd rather get somebody in that
in that house, yeah, to see and make an evaluation
that would be a lot more meaningful than the one
that I can give.
Speaker 5 (46:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
I always think about this because.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
My grandfather didn't let us really do much of anything,
but he did let us mow the lawn. So he
must have really hated mowing the lawn, right because my
cousin did it before I did, which meant he wasn't
necessarily super old, okay, right, because I mean, and my
grandfather died when he was eighty four. I had probably
been mowing the lawn for five or six years at
that point, and I took over from another cousin.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
It was just like a passing of the torch kind
of thing for the family.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, I mean, and they gave us money for it,
more than they should have, right.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
Not a lot, yeah, but something you know.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, I think literally we're talking like twelve dollars or whatever,
but like you know, mid nineties we're talking.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, so that was like, that's that's like twelve meals
McDonald's in the nineties from the dollar menu.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Well they had that Tuesday there were thirty nine cent handburgers,
forty nine cent cheeseburgers. Got the McDonald's and Clifton Park
and no, lie, my brother would buy ten cheeseburgers.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
I don't know that he ever ate all ten.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
But he did, right, it's the principal Yes, yeah, good
for you, Mark.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
So anyway, but I think, you know, we're getting to
the point where it's time for the moral of the story, right,
And there are resources available to people. If you're feeling
that you're overwhelmed, reach out to somebody, whether that's a
family member so they can reach out to someone like us,
(47:41):
or a care coordinator.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
You don't have to go it alone. There's a lot
of solutions out there, right, Some solutions are better than others.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Yeah, I mean, there even are online communities and things
for solo seniors or right elder. I mean sometimes we
hear the term elder orphans.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Right.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
I do not like the term. I just wanted to
throw it out there because you may see that term.
Essentially it's it's older folks when they don't have literally
anybody else, right, no spouse, no children. So there are
even ways to connect with other people in similar circumstances
where you can kind of become a team and maybe
get some to get some people in your life to
just commiserate with.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Who's that that's my aging buddy? Yeah, you know, yeah,
but I mean I'm being flippant, but.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
Whatever works, yeah, right, it's better than nothing.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
I mean I literally suggested to my friend that his
mom and his mother.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
In law live together, didn't they do that?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
They ultimately didn't end up doing it, okay, but like
it was a really good solution. Yeah, as long as
they didn't hate each other, right, which they didn't. Yeah,
they'd known each other for a long time. They both
needed help. We know that when two people live in
a house and they need help, we get more hours,
yeah right, yep, and you get more safety because you
got somebody looking after you.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
So sometimes you just got to think a little outside
the box.
Speaker 4 (48:59):
I have like elder step brothers in my head now,
so thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
I mean, never know, right, I mean I think the
activities will be slightly different. Yeah, you know, you know,
playing shuffleboard or pinuckle or something.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Can watch cops, right.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
All right, Well we're coming up to the end of
the show. So certainly if you are in this situation,
your parents are in this situation, reach out to us.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Consultation is free.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
We'll go through what we think we can do for you,
and then you can decide what you want to do.
You can call us at the office at five one
eight four five nine. You can send us an email
at info at puro law dot com. That's p I
E R R O Law dot com and don't forget
(49:46):
Frank and I'll be doing a medicaid Monday. You can
go to the website and also find us there.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Thank you for listening. Have a great weekend everybody. We
will talk to you soon
Good morning, Welcome to Life Happens. Are you prepared?
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is our weekly radio program for individuals and their
families where we address the challenges.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
We all face as we age. We talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
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 educate and prepare you for
events like retirement, protecting your income and assets, paying for nursing,
home and home care, planning for special needs, drafting wills
and trusts, and planning for an untimely death, or maybe
even resolving disputes.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
In and out of court.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Aaron Connor from Pure O'Connor and Strauss, joined by my
most frequent radio compadre, mister Frank Emming.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Good afternoon, Frank, or a good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
How you doing, Aaron, It's good to be back with you.
I feel like it's been a little while since they
put us together again.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I mean, we should have a stat sheet somewhere of like,
you know, the combinations.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
We'd win that yes, by far the leader in the club,
ass of us, not even close. I mean you and
Lou I know, had quite a few years where you
guys were doing it a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, but that's a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I was to say that was really pre me more
than anything, right, which is a while ago at this point. So,
and I've done plenty with Lou, but I've certainly done
more with you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
But so we are elder law lawyers. State planning.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Frank obviously runs a Medicaid department and also does the
long term care planning. I do just about everything from
dabbling or you know, I wouldn't dabbling isn't a word
I like to use. But in taking high end plans
right and assigning them to people, to regular the state planning,
(01:35):
to normal long term care planning, to maybe some abnormal
long term care planning, you know, in taking again Medicaid
work for Frank.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
To do your favorite kind of work, take it in,
hand it away.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Hey, I'm honest in the console.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Me, I feel like we're not you know, this isn't
like inside baseball stuff that we can't talk about it.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
That's the best kind of work.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Take it in, take your problem and give it to
somebody else.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Perfect, And obviously I also do probate in litigation work,
whether that's uh while people are alive in the form
of guardian ships or maybe an accounting of a power
of attorney or postaff when it's trust in a state litigation.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
So we got you covered.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, And I always tell people that you'd much rather
meet Aaron when he's in his like planning capacity rather
than his litigation capacity. Is correct, just generally he's going
to be nicer, the outcome is probably going to be
a little more assured, like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Absolutely. I mean, litigation is difficult.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
You you you know, nice guys in litigation don't really
work out very well. Yeah, right, Although that doesn't mean
we treat each other badly, No, there's a professionalism. We
have to take a hard line sometimes, which can be difficult.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Taking a hard line's not really that difficult for me though,
I don't know, it's just my personality.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I guess, yeah, that's kind of the default, I think generally.
That's why I say I always kind of warn people
it's like, you'd rather see Aaron on the planning side
and then the litigation side, and that he won't be
good to do without either one. But there should be
a preference preferences plan.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, absolutely so if you're a professional out there, if
you are in the financial space or you're an accountant.
I just want to let you know that we do
have our twentieth annual Intergenerational Estate Planning Conference coming up
on November fifth. That's for professionals. It's at the Opening
Capital Center during the afternoon. I have some good speakers,
(03:28):
especially about dealing with cryptocurrency, which you know, I've still kind.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Of avoided for myself because I just don't I don't
know if I.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
If you gambled the right way, it's done really well
for you.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
It has it has no doubt about it. People have
made money on it. But I just long term, I
have no idea. So I'm more of a conservative person. Yeah, no,
it comes to that stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, I'd love to be able to, you know, kick
myself go back in time, make all the smart decisions,
and now have the benefits from all those.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, but I'd probably be getting rid of it, Honestly,
I say, But I'm not saying you should do that.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I'm not a financial advisor.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, but uh, but I know that's not how I
would work. I still find a lot of it very
anxiety driving. Sunestly, Yeah, so I know I would not
feel comfortable doing that, But again, that's not really our space.
That's why you have your financial refreshments.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
But I will say for me myself, I do enjoy
picking some stocks myself, and it's kind of like my
rotisserie baseball or whatever you want to call it, fantasy baseball.
I picked these and then I see how they do, right,
I guess it's not life changing.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I just think of that the highs are higher the
lows are lower because it has like actual stakes with it,
where it's like if you lose your fantasy league, like
the worst thing is you might get humiliated or have
to do something like, you know, embarrassing, but like it
didn't really have consequences.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Pretty bad punishments out there, right, Not that I'm going
to relay an They's.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Family show, Please be mindful of the Family Show.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But I just said, like, but if your stock the
camp goes from like money to zero, money like that
has that has consequences to it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Sure, So you know, I think one thing we hear
on a daily basis, or some of my daily basis
from clients is when we're talking about long term care,
is that it's not going to be me or if
I get there, I'm going to take care of myself, right,
or I'm going to put a pillow.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I mean, I'm not kidding. I'm going to put a
pillow over their face.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I mean, I'm not laughing.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I mean some people are joking, right, some people are
not joking.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I mean, so let me channel Lou for a second.
Lou would say to that person, because I've heard him
say it enough times that I think I can quote
him pretty well, is that the problem is when you
go to look for the pillow or you're going to
look for the gun or whatever it is, you're not
going to remember that you needed the pillow or that
you needed the gun, or where you put it or
whatever the whatever. The you know, the analogy is.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And I think that you know, not again to be
flipping about it, but a lot of people are like,
today's not the day. It's not bad enough yet, and
by the time it gets bad enough you don't have
that capacity.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
It's too late.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And also, to be clear, I'm not aving cating for
one side or the other. I'm just saying that this
is something that people talk about with us, and you know, yeah,
whatever you believe, you believe, and that's okay, right, But
recently there have been some kind of strange stories, and
(06:19):
there was a story in South Carolina where an eighty
two year old woman walked into the nursing home and
shot her husband.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Like, well, he was a patient in the nursing home. Yes, okay,
just try to set the stage.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
By so she's eighty one, yep, right now. She did
not kill herself, which I would think would probably most
people in a scenario like that would do.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Right, But again not a judgment where.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, I feel like if I'm playing the odds, I'm
playing that.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Card, right, I mean, eighty one? Do you want to
go to prison? Probably not that you ever really want
to go to prison, don't get me wrong, but.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
And this week's life happens, do you want to go
to prison?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Well, I mean life happens. You're in prison, you have
a plan now, Although they did just okay, a reboot.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Of prison Break, So I didn't know that, so I did,
weirdly enough, and I've watched the season of that show,
and I don't know what happened after that, But I
might go back got out, Say, I might go back
and rewatch the whole thing now, because apparently it's coming back.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
They get out, then they got put back in and
then they got out.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
I don't know would they could be a limited premise,
but apparently not.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
New team, new prison, a new break.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
So to just keep locking it up and he keeps
getting out.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah hey yeah, but in this case, I guess that
the woman left a note behind that said to you all,
this has been too much for me. I wish I
could do it with the wonderful family. We have so
many good friends. We can't have a life without someone,
and that someone can't be me. And I am not
strong enough or smart enough to do all of this.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So pretty sad scenario.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah, heartbreaking, right because again, not to make judgment calls
about stuff that clearly we're not qualified to make. But
I mean, think of what place you have to be
and to think that that's the best avenue forward, right right,
more than anything, right.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So, and I think it makes you think that one
whatever support she was getting from the outside world certainly
wasn't enough or there should have been maybe some signals
that she needed some even mental health, right yeah. I
mean as a country, I think in general, we don't
deal with mental health very well. And you know, people
(08:38):
don't talk about it, right, especially older people. Something to
talk about, and clearly some mental health support here probably
would have went a long way.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Oh yeah, I mean I think I think we're trying
our best at society to take some of the stigma
away from people seeking health for mental health issues and
other related problems. But certainly, if you want to play
you know, fortune teller if you will, or whatever, if
you go back to where those people were in their
(09:08):
life at the time of like what the world looked like, right,
that was coming from a time where you didn't talk
about this stuff, or there weren't diagnoses for things or both,
you know whatever, right, and just you know, if you've
never known any different, how would you know that it's
maybe okay that you feel the way that you feel.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right, right, And I think everybody in her situation would
feel stressed. Right if you've been married for a long time,
in your first of all, your spouse isn't in the.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
House, it's a huge change.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Right on a morning basis, on an evening basis.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Yeah, I mean, I figured it was gonna come up
in somehow, So this seems like a good segue. So
not to make this about me, but I always joke
I'm an only child, so everything's about me anyway. But
I recently lost my grandfather at the end of July,
and then my grandmother just passed within the last week
or so, and knowing that they were to be married
(10:01):
for seventy three years if he had lived just another
few weeks, seeing what that looked like for my grandmother,
knowing that she had literally never lived her adult life
without her spouse, and then living to be ninety one
without him was something that she just wasn't really going
to do well with, right, because she didn't know it, right.
She got married when she was nineteen years old. She
(10:22):
went from living with her parents to her or to
her husband, right, she never had to be a functioning
adult without her husband, and when it finally was time,
she was ninety one dealing with her own issues, and
it just didn't didn't.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Go very well, right. And I mean, you can't really
blame her, No, of course.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I zero blame. It's just that's just that's her reality, right, right.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So yeah, and so from obviously we're lawyers, we can't
really help from the mental health standpoint, right, sure.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I mean I feel like a counselor a good part
of the time, depending on the type of casey we're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Of course, Yeah, I say this all the time that
in consults, I say, this isn't legal advice, this is
life advice, right, and then depending on the situation, I
give them some advice over because we've been at this
for a long time and we've seen a lot of
bad Since we've seen right, we've seen better scenarios and
peace of mind, whether it's because you've got the plan done,
(11:18):
whether it's because we've been able to help you with
a care solution, or whether we've been able to you know,
if it's a state administration or trust administration, we've been
able to help you close at least a financial chapter
and then deal with whatever you have to deal with
every else. But if you don't do those things, you
don't get to deal with the emotional. So those are important.
(11:40):
But there's certainly things, you know, and obviously we don't
know what was in place, but that could have maybe
been done to help these people from a planning standpoint.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Now I don't know if he was home.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
Care was a possibility, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And you know, I think probably now is a good
time to take a break because we can talk about
when we come back, maybe what could have been done
to make a situation better for the spouse. Sure, right,
obviously we don't know whether that would have changed the
scenario or not. But when we come back, we'll talk
about planning for home care and how that can.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Assist a spouse in this situation. This is Life Happens Radio.
I'm Aaron Connor from pierro O Connor and Strauss, and
we'll be back right after this. Welcome back to Life
Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, Piro Connor and Strauss, joined by
my partner Frank Hemming. We were talking about an unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Scenario where recently a woman walked into the nursing home
and shot her husband, feeling that basically overwhelmed for sure,
and feeling that things weren't getting better and that she
couldn't really survive on her own.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Just to put in perspective that.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
This is not necessarily an outlier, I don't think it's
a commonplace, right, but just this week in year old
man shot his ninety three year old wife in an
assisted living and then turned a gun on himself.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Okay, yeah, so that we have two nationalized versions of
a similar story.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
If you will, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So again, certainly some mental health help will probably be
a good idea, but also physical help probably would have
alleviated a lot of this.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
You know, so we do a lot of home care plans.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I think that's fair to say, right, there are limited
circumstances in where home care can be particularly challenging.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
Right, Yes, you're very rural.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yes, and look if your kid lives with you and
they're going to be the caretaker great right or in
law or grandchild whatever, Right, But rural just tends to
be problematic from getting a care person in place.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Maybe you can have a living right. That's something that
isn't utilized a lot.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
If you can find one and they authorize it, yes.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Or you pay for it, right, or you're there's some
com yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I mean money is always the best answer or always
an answer, I don't say best. It gives you always
an answer, yes, it's always an answer, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
And gets you to the front of the line quicker, Yes, right.
Home care can be particularly challenging if you're a two
person assist.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, that's that's kind of a it's a really hard
barrier to overcome because Medicaid is as good or as
bad as.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
It can be.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
They're only going to give you one person, and unfortunately,
if you need to then either you need to be
the second person, provide the second person, whether that's the
you know, the the spouse, the child, the grandchild, the friend,
the neighbor, whomever, or you have to pay for the
second person. So I mean, if you go from paying
for two people to paying for one person, well that's
still a pretty big financial win, but it's still going
(14:55):
to be a pretty significant financial outlay if you're then
having to pay that person for the amount of.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Care that the loved one needs.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
So that usually isn't something a lot of people can
financially stomach very easily without it severely impacting kind of
the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Right right, any other scenarios you feel like that home
care doesn't work very.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Well, I mean, failure to locate AIDS has always been
a challenge, right now. Some of that goes rural, some
of it's not. I mean, it's just not as simple
as that. Unfortunately. The other thing is dementia Alzheimer's can
get very challenging, yes, because you could physically have either
an AID or a companion, you know, second person with
(15:36):
the individual, even if it's twenty four hours a day essentially,
but if they become a wandering risk, just a general
danger to themselves because there's just the lack of understanding
those two what is good behavior and what isn't Some
of that gets really challenging. And it might not even
because you It may not be because you cannot provide
the person to be with them, right.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Sometimes demensia Alzheimer's patients become islent for a period of time, right,
which is always been a problem.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
So, I mean, so that's the kind of thing like
where sometimes it's just not a good scenario, and it's
not usually for the reason that you'd think, right. So,
I think a lot of people generally assume it's either
we can't find the people or we can't afford the people, right,
and that those are I think more common. But sometimes
you do have the scenario where it's just it's not
a good scenario, right, you know, when you take those
other aspects off the table.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
But I would say for many people, home care is
a very good plan, especially early.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
If you do the planning to want to have that
be the outcome, yes, right, you know, I think I
think just generally speaking, just about like anything I think
we talk about, it's making sure that you have that
plan in place to set you up for success. And
if you have the plan built that that's the outcome
that you want, the likelihood of success just goes up so.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Much higher and so much faster.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Correct, because when you when you got the house on fire,
that's not the time to be making all the plans.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Like we like to say, well, right, frankly, you're not
making plans. You're trying to come up with.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
So you're reacting to the problem, right.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yes, you really need to be proactive, and whether that
means having some form of insurance right, Like, typically in
the last five to ten years, I don't see people
ensuring the entire risk because it's almost impossible to do
that now.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
From a financial.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Standpoint, I see people taking you know, maybe a long
term care policy that's going to pay fifty thousand dollars
a year or something to offset.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Yeah, and I always feel that.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Their income they can pay that way.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I always feel very conflicted about giving advice on those
types of situations to a degree because it always feels
bad as the planning person in the room to say
you've not made a good decision, right, because they clearly
thought about it, they sought that advice, They've put money
towards trying to enact something that they thought was a
good idea. But just when it comes to the actual
(17:59):
financial reaction of the situation, what's that going to do?
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Well?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Then they have to be realistic about that. What does
that get you?
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
And I see more that might pay, Like let's say
five thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, right, Okay, you can be at home and have
five thousand dollars a month cover you know, a limited
amount of care. But if you're just getting right at
right involved, right at the start, that might be the
difference between you having to go into your own assets
or not, right, and it might set you up for
prolonged success because you're not having to take big chunks
out right at the start.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Generally, I think what the thought process is, and I'm
not evaluating it one way or the other. Is that
that plus my income right sure, probably.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Keeps me at home?
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Right?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I think that.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Hopefully when you're older, you know, and again, if you're a.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Couple, you have to look at both sides of that, right, Yep,
is I'm older, right, so not a lot older, but
I'm older than my spouse, And so if my income
goes away, does she have enough income? Well the answer
is probably yes, right, So we could use my income
to pay for me, right, and I'm sure she'd be
happy to have me out of the house.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
So you have a different problem.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
But you know that kind of thing that all needs
to be thought about, because if your income goes away,
what does the other person's income have to pay for?
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And that might be property tax, it might be you know,
lots of things that your income had been paid for.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yeah, And not to not to get sidetracked, but it's
because it's related to this. I think just a very
general statement might be helpful here. And that's if you
have long term care insurance and you start to be
in a position to maybe use it, use it. Yes,
It's crazy how many people walk into the office where
they have a policy that they've been paying to for
usually a pretty long period of time, correct, where they
(19:43):
haven't started utilizing it. It's like why, like you have
it for this reason, like why wouldn't you use it?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And some of them are partnership policies.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Right, So start the clock, right, you want to get
that spent down. I mean, it's it's really unfortunate that
you got into a position to need it right, right,
because I think a lot of times when people purchase insurance,
some of the ideas it's there if I need it,
hopefully I never do right, right, So I guess it's
unfortunate that life is thrown into the curve ball that
you need to use the policy. But like that's literally
there to help you in this circumstance, please use it,
(20:16):
And a lot of them, you know, just generically speaking,
a lot of them, like they'll do you want it
to pay in your premiums anymore if you start accessing it,
right though, right, So not only they give you money
and you stop giving them money. That that sounds okay.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And all of these policies have what's called an elimination period, yes, right, yep.
So if you don't start the elimination period, you never
get the benefit.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Then it's not going to help you until you get
through your your period, which is thirty sixty, ninety or
one hundred days most.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Of the time ninety to one hundred. Yeah, I've seen shorter,
but most of the time ninety one.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yes, say, if we're going to take a bet, it's
usually ninety or one hundred, but yes, it could be
thirty one hundred, usually on the upper upper tail of that.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I don't think I've ever seen one higher than one hundred.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Yeah, I don't. I don't think I have either.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
But but again, like, just use the thing that you have, right,
or at least try to get advice really quickly to
make sure to see if it makes sense to use
the thing, right.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And I guess the only delta I could see is
if you have a limited pool of money. Right, So
more recently, you were signing up for a pool of money.
Let's just say you're paying a premium and at the
end you get five hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Dollars of benefit.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Fine, right, Sure, And some people, I think, in those
circumstances become reluctant to use it because they don't want
to run out of that.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
But generally speaking, that's at least two.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Years in a nursing home, right, Yep, probably closer to
three if you have any real income. So most people
that's not really an issue. Most people don't live in
a nursing home for that period of time. Now I'm
not saying they don't. Unfortunately, my wife's grandmother had to
mention I think she was in a nursing home for
eight years. Right, So you know, you always have to
do kind of a cost But if you have that
(21:50):
period of time and you haven't done a plan, we
can come up with a plan to probably save.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
A lot of assets.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, but that buys you some time to kind of
get through the period where the plan hasn't worked, or
as it were, get or you know whatever however you
want to phrase it.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That's right. So having one thing that a small long
term care policy will help you. It will give you
dollars to throw at AIDS though as well.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yes, right home health care is yeah, I mean I
think the scenario I was more talking about is because
I've seen this more than I wish that I had
or have obviously, is people walk in and you know,
they get one hundred dollars a day, let's say, right,
so one hundred dollars a day, and their loved one needs, yeah,
twelve to twenty four hours a day of care and
use it, and it's like one hundred dollars a day
(22:34):
is going to get you maybe three to four hours
if you're lucky.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
I mean, is it helpful. Of course, it's helpful.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Having money is better than not having money, But how
much is that really helping the bottom line situation?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
It's not making a huge debt in it. You have
a much bigger longer term problem here than just doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Exactly, and you need to be mindful of that.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
So I think if we've just said anything, is that
that no, two situations are exactly like I think when
people come in, they think that we have a cookie
cutter solution for them. That's not to say that two
people might not have the same solution, but more often
than not they don't.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Yeah, right, I mean you changed three facts on what
we just said, our plan could be entirely different, right, And.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
I mean if there's a spouse, things can be different.
If they're you know, if there's a disabled child, things
might be different, ye, right. If there's property owned by
multiple people, things might be different. So there's there's so
many factors that you would think of things that you
would never think.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Are a factory, right, or a child is blind.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Right yep?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
But not death?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Sorry, sorry, nope.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I don't know what the what you know what the
rule is for that purpose. But so we're coming up
on the news, all right. We when we come back,
we're going to continue to talk about accessing home care
and how that would work and why that could be
beneficial in a situation like those we've talked about. I
am Aaron Connor from Peer O'Connor and Strauss and we'll
be back right after the news Welcome back to Life
(24:01):
Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, Pierre Connor and Strauss joined by
my partner Frank Hemmick. We are talking about home care
as a solution for adult care needs. Before we get
into that again, I just want to say a couple
of things that November tenth, Frank and I will be
doing a Medicaid Monday.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Which makes it extra special. But in all seriousness, we're going.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
To talk about what to do when you get denied
or you don't receive what we feel you should have received,
whether that be hours or usually hours.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
But those are usually the big fights these days. I mean,
I can't say we've never at least threatened to go
to hearing over a penalty situation with a chronic care
application something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
It's just become determinations once in a while.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Yeah, we haven't really had to do that, thankfully.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So Frank and I will be doing that Medicaid Monday.
It's a webinar on November tenth, noon to twelve thirty.
If you want to sign up for that, you can
go to purolaw dot com under the events tab. We
also have for professionals, financial advisors, accountants, anyone in the
(25:16):
wealth space, our Intergenerational Estate Planning Conference where we talk
about assets strategies and avoiding a state tax and how
to plan for maybe some tricky assets.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
You own a business, what are you going to do?
And this year we're also going to talk about crypto
because you know, we're cool crypto bros actually wearing a.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Puffy vest, Oh are we? Okay?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Okay, but no, But it's an important part of what
people own now as assets, digital assets in general. You know,
sometimes we have people with copyrights all of that type
of thing. So if you're interested in that and you're
in those spaces, that's November fifth, from twelve thirty to
six thirty at the Capital Center, and again you just
go to our website to get some more information about that.
(26:04):
Frank and I were talking about a couple of sad
situations where people had kind of taken the solution into
their own hands.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I guess I would.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Say, and uh, and maybe you know, obviously we don't
know all the facts of those situations, but if we
were dealing with an aging couple coming to us, we
wanted to talk about what we could do maybe to
avoid these outcomes.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Right, yeah, sure, I mean the first I don't alway
say the first, but I thought that I had as
you were going through the stories, was you know, we
don't really know. Is this a is this a mental
illness problem? Is it a stress problem? Is that a
you know, is it a financial stress problem? Is it
a physical health problem? Is it a loneliness? I mean,
there's a lot of stuff could be all those, right, right,
(26:49):
I mean, who.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Am I to say?
Speaker 3 (26:50):
But I guess you know, Unfortunately, the way that I
always kind of phrased this to clients when we're working
together is it may seem heartless in the moment, but
like we kind of have to look at it from
the financial side, because those are the kind of levers
we can help pull and right and manipulate in things
to to help the situation.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I mean, to be frank, I can't fix your emotional.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Right exactly, like no one, No one can, right, Like,
that's why you have to do their own work. And
now you can see help for that and get counseling
and all the kind of stuff. But ultimately that's going
to fall a lot to the person for for help
with that. So when we're counseling people, we have to
kind of look at the financial pieces because those are
the things we usually can help with the most right
with the best results. So, I mean so if this
(27:31):
was a a you know, a thought by by O
either of these of these spouses of like the financial
burden just was gonna was just going to you know,
take their life away essentially, and there were no outcomes here.
I mean that that one hundred percent, at least in
New York, you know, with the with the rules we
have and the abilities that we have.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
That's just not true.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
As long as you get out in front of it correct,
even if it's even if it's at the last moment,
there's typically things that can be done too not not
have complete financial ruin.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Correct, you know, Yes, New York's look, we all have
our issues with how the State of New York might
do certain things right. Maybe different mine or different than yours,
or yours are different than whatever. Right, I can say
from a medicaid perspective, there are rules in New York
that make it more favorable to a New York resident
(28:23):
than they do to make it in other states.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, just about all of them, right, I mean, you know,
without saying blanket statements, you know, there's very few that
probably can compete with a lot of things that we
have here.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Right, even just from your basic asset limit r right,
I think the only state with a higher basic asset
limit is.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
California, right, because they don't have one, right, which is
they got they got away with theirs, right, So they
don't have one unless that's changed or we're inaccurate, and
we're not California attorneys.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Right. Generally speaking to my knowledge, they don't have an
asset limit. So but other.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Than that, I'm I don't know anyone even close to
ours at thirty two thousand that change.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Right, And we're not talking like bank rolling.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
No.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
But I mean again, most places it's instead of instead
of thirty two thousand, it's two thousand if you're single,
it's three thousand if you're married, right, Right, So the
difference between thirty two thousand and three and two thousand
for a single person. I mean, that's a pretty sizable
difference a lot. Yeah, thirty thousand. Yeah, that's a big difference.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, it is. And it allows you to pay for
certain things, right, Yeah, I mean I'm not talking about care.
I'm talking about like, if your hot water heater goes,
you would have money in the bank to do something about.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
It, or you need to you need to do a
car repair, right, roof is leaking. Yeah, you need some clothes,
you need some furniture.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I mean, I mean for two thousand, you know you're
gonna be hurting.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Yeah, I mean, and.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Most people's income is higher than that too, I know.
And now again income and assets are different things in
the medicaid world, yes, right, but if you get five
thousand dollars of income and you spend two thousand of
it in a month and you got three thousand an
asset for the next month, yeah you.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Got a problem. Yeah, you got a problem.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So like in that in that case, again, it's always
interesting kind of just see client reactions to this, but
generally with medicaid, you know, we usually are pivoting from
a saving mentality to a spending mentality is as crazy
as that sounds, because a lot of time you want
to be spending money, right, you just want to be
doing it smartly and appropriately.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But my wife is looking forward to the spending mentality.
I think she's there already.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I shud her for you.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
But it's just it's just But that's why, right, Because
as crazy as it sounds, like, if you had that scenario,
you'd be better served to spend the extra thousand dollars
stay on benefits exactly, rather than keep the thousand dollars
lose benefits, right, which is which is nuts, But that's
how it works, well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I mean sadly, Yeah, you can take the thousand dollars
to the casino and lose it. You had to spend it,
and they would not Medicaid would not have any.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Recourse as long as you can prove that you spent
that money on yourself and you just hand it to somebody.
And in most respects so if you, I mean, you're
allowed to make bad financial decisions.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
But I mean we've had to stay ablish gambling losses
on more than one occasion.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yes, we had one within the last I don't know
a year or so where it was like a sizeable
amount of money that he lost at the casino.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
But Bingo cash he wanted to do it.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
She wanted to do it, and we proved that they did,
and they didn't penalize them because again, they're they're allowed
to do things like that. It's just you have to
be gambling for yourself.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
I say, exactly, they don't get to second guess your
bad decisions. Yes, from a I mean mentally they might.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
They can't get eligibility for eligibility purposes.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
They can't be like, oh, you shouldn't spend one thousand
dollars on a lamp.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
That's dumb.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Well it might be right, I prove you did it right,
and if you have the lamp, right, yeah, and you're like,
I love lamp.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, I was saying, I'm thinking it's it's that or
it's it's the like lamp from like.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Christmas story, right, But I was more, you know, ron.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Yeah, no, no, you know, you know there's only something
there's only so many famous lamps there.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
But if you're a concert floutist, right and you buy
an expensive flute, well so be it, right.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
Sure, but somebody needs to do the jazz flute. It's too.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I tell people all the time that you have to
suspend logic because the whole it's illogical. So much of
it is ill a lot of it is right, you know,
because in a different world, you'd probably think that if
you made bad expenditures, they would penalize you for that, right,
So many people and I clearly bad expends, yeah, I mean,
(32:36):
it's a scale that.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
So many people get concerned when they're saying, well, we
paid two thousand dollars for a recliner, Okay, so for
who from that person?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
You're good, right, right. It's spending money on yourself or
your spouse is typically always good, right, as long as
we can prove that's what you did, right. So when
you start spending on other people that it gets you
in trouble.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Right again, and then you know, can be a fine
line too. So and a lot of people don't understand
that you have to prove your eligibility right. Yes, you
don't walk in and get.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
It not anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
We had we had a bit of a grace period,
but some of that during COVID because they just they
you know, they waived so many rules just to try
to get people assistants during the public health emergency, where
if you would essentially a test that you were eligible,
there wasn't really much that they would do look back
wise and things to actually find out if that was
true or not.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And that also got some people.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
We did not We did not operate that way, no, right.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Because a lot of people attested who weren't eligible.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Right, So we did not operate that way.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
But there was a time like where it was a
lot simpler just to get your paperwork pushed through, yes
and things. But that's that's time has been passed. That
time has passed because we're no longer in the public
health emergency.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
So yeah, it's clear.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
It's clearly on the applicant to prove eligibility, and if
you don't, they are going to deny you.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
That's just that's how it goes.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
That's right. So you know, and along nursing home Medicaid,
that's even more onerous. Right, So with.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Home care in New York, at least for now, right,
you can do a lot of things to become eligible quickly. Yes,
it doesn't mean it's necessarily that you shouldn't do it
ahead of time, right, Yeah, because we do have a
pending look.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Back and going to say, let's and then we need
to expand here, because sure, I know what you're talking about,
and you know what I'm talking about. Right, Let's make
sure everybody knows what we're talking about. So there still
is no look back for home care for Medicaid purposes
in New York. So if you need home care, we
can do just about whatever we want to make your
assets disappear. We usually use trust for those things.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Sometimes we use a spouse, sometimes we do lots of things.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Right, we have every appvenue available to us, and there's
no look back, so it doesn't really matter what we
do because they can't look back to see what you've
been doing with your finances.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Just when you currently apply. Are you eligible? Right?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
If you are financially they approve you. If you're not,
then they deny you. But you know, it's relatively limited
in what they can do and look at and give
you a problem about Nursing home is not the same
because it does have the five year lookback that's been
in place for a very long time now, and we
anticipate that sooner rather than later, there will be a
(35:20):
two and a half year look back put on home
care because there was the law passed in twenty twenty
to institute that change. It just has been delayed and
delayed and delayed off an offset because of either the
public health emergency or now I think it's really just
New York State implementing the changes they would need to
make to an institute that look back. Can't say for
(35:41):
certain if it's going to happen or not. It's much
safer for us to assume that it will at some point,
probably sooner rather than later. But as we sit here
right now, still no look back. So again, doing planning
to think that it's going to be a reality is smart.
But if you have someone in your life that didn't
do any plans or planning and now needs home care,
(36:02):
we're still very We have a lot of robust things
that we can do to make them eligible, usually within
a month or two, but that's likely going to change, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
And.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
We really have no idea what that implementation is really
going to look like. Yeah, I mean we know what
the rules are kind of for, we know what we should.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Know, ye be clear.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Yeah, for large pieces of it, I think we either
know or we could take very educated guesses. But there
are holes kind of in some of it, and then
that there's just going to be a lot of logistical
challenges to it. Like I can tell you counties are
over or counties are understaffed, overworked right now, and when
this change takes effect, this will drastically change their workload
(36:45):
for any case that comes out like across their desk,
And I don't know how they're going to do with that.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, well, I think one of the interesting things is
if you end up doing home care no notes like
we do notes now.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Right, which we've always kind of thought that's likely the
best avenue we'd have to do.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So to explain, if you do no planning and you
come to us and let's say mom needs a nursing home. Yep,
let's just say mom has five hundred thousand dollars. Okay,
we're going to exempt the thirty.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
Roughly, right, four seventy right, maybe prepay a burial, okay,
all right, Then figure out what our income is, what
our cost of care is, and do a note right
where essentially half money goes out and half goes to
the nursing home.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
It's not always an exact number, right, but roughly.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Usually in the ballpark, right, So we're talking. So there
we're talking.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
We're saving two hundred and thirty thousand, roughly, we're losing
to thirty we're saving to thirty.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Right, if you do get out in front of it
five years ahead of time, you save it all.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
For home care, I'm not sure that we are going
to have the same cost of care every month. That's
going to be tricky.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
No, it's best we're going to have is current or
you know, most recent month, or at least best esthenate
of next month.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
I mean, but if people go as people say downhill, right,
or their condition worsens, they're going to have a problem.
Y's their cost of care is going to go up yep. Right,
And with notes, income goes into the note. Is that
how it's gonna work with home.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Care or with a pool trust situation? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Right, So I mean I can use the pool trust
after the note.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Is up right, that's I mean, it's it's got some
weird nuances to it that we don't know yet, and
or at least we we know as much as we know,
and there's some things that we don't no guidance.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Right at this point. Right, It doesn't mean there won't
be guidance. But all right, I think now it's a
good time to take a break.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
We come back.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
We'll talk about utilizing home care, what we can do
maybe to augment the home care, those types of things.
Americ Connor, This is Life Happens Radio, Pierre O'Connor and
Strouts and we'll be.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Back right after this.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Welcome back to Life Happens Radio. Aaron Connor, Peri, O'Connor,
and Strauss joined my partner Frank Hemmick, talking about you
stay at home, you get in some support that you need,
probably aging in the place that you want to be, right,
not a facility unless unless you want that, right, right,
I mean, look, if you want a facility, boom, we
(39:18):
got you.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Right, It's rare.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
But I can't say no one would want to. Most
people probably don't, right.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I mean, I think one of the most hilarious cases,
if from our perspective, was when we had a husband
and wife that demanded to be in separate nursing homes.
Right well, they did not want to be in the
same nursing home.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
Yeah, I mean, it's it was.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
It was a sad story ultimately just because the reason
behind the request. But yes, we did have a scenario
where husband and wife both needed facility and Dad didn't
want to be in the same facility as mom.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
Right, Mom wasn't very nice to him anymore.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Right, So some things you know can't make it up. No,
truth is really stranger than fiction generally speaking. So we've
been talking about what you have to do to access
home care, right, And I think one of the undervalued
things of access and care, whether that be in a
(40:13):
facility or at home, but I think more predominantly at
home is interaction.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Sure, a lot of elderly people are isolated, and people
who are isolated have more tendency to become depressed. Maybe
they're sitting there watching the bad news all the time, right,
I mean that can be something that people do.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
And become more and more isolated.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
It's not good, right, And isolation also not good for
mental acuity.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I am not a doctor, clearly, but I watched my
grandmother do crossword puzzles.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I do puzzles. I do all sorts of puzzles.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
I like puzzles.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
I mean what we do really is puzzles to.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Putting them together in different ways and problem solving. But
I think that helps keep your brain strong. Sure, it's
always good to be using new words, right.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Like my daughter who's eleven, when I do something that
she doesn't like, she now likes to say that the audacity.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
So I mean, it's it's good. So quick, quick shout
out to Elena. It's I'm assuming it's Elena that's doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's Lily.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's Lily. Okay, fine, all right, Lily. Uh next time
unmitigated gall All right, there you go. How dare he
have the unmitigated gall to do whatever he's doing?
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Or sometimes I'm diabolical, you know. So, I mean I
kind of just feel like the villain and inspector gadgets
in his face we never saw, but you know doctor claw.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Yeah, so you swivel around hold like a cat.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
But I might. I don't want to give away my secrets.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
But you know, learning is always good, whether that be reading, right,
I mean, in today's world, it could be watching documentaries
or videos on YouTube, right, reputable.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
If there's one thing that I feel like we don't
have a shortage of, it's entertain options if you have
the internet.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Right, or but it can be education. Yeah, I mean,
I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
But I've always liked searching for ships underwater, right.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
I always thought that was cool. Okay, I don't personally
want to die of anything.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
I could watch people do it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
And you know, my daughter will actually watch that with me.
She finds it interesting.
Speaker 5 (42:22):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
But you can learn things from like that, or maybe
you like animals, right and you watch but all of
those keeping your mind going helps keep your body going.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, Like, I know it's not nearly as cool as
I think yours, but uh, I know when I was
growing up, I had a computer game for uh, where
in the world is Carmen San Diego? And they would
always give you clues as to where your next location was.
You got to be chasing after this nice woman, relieve, right,
And I feel like because I played that game a
lot when I was younger, I knew like all the
(42:53):
flags for all the country, sure is. One of the
one of the clues they'd always give you was a
flag and they'd be like, well, what flag does this
country go to? Or you know, which which country does
his flag belong to? And for a long time I
knew a lot of flags, right, And you know, was
it life changing? Probably not, but I'm sure that came
in handy a few times, like in school growing up
of like oh yeah, like that's that's Germany's flag or
(43:13):
that's Italy's flag or whatever it was. And I learned
it because I was just playing a game. But it
wasn't just strictly just my numbing button pushing. There was
there was thought there.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, thank you for putting that theme song by I
think Rockapella in mind.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
I wouldn't have known that. I know that I can
think of the song, but I didn't know who did it.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
So and a guy went to law school with who
grew up like.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
In Westchester County, okay one, and you know, you could
pick somewhere to go.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yep, he picked New York City and he's and he
was from basically New York City. I mean, just all right,
I mean it's just joice, it's a miss.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Okay, Yeah, I think he would tell you it was a.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
Miss if you're allowed to do bad things or stupid things.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Right, we were just talking about its discussion ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Right, if you win, don't.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Pick yeah, probably fair.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Right, probably not Buffalo either, but you know.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
If you like the Bills and you like wings, then
go for it. But you know, most people probably wouldn't
pick Buffalo if no, depending on the options.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Not all but yeah, but anyway, so.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
I digress.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
It's also I think important to say physically active to
the extent that people can. Right now, what we actually
see is spouse is providing a lot of physical care.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Yes, that type of.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
Physical activity is not necessarily what I'm talking about, right,
I mean, because it's for a lot of getting someone
in and out of the shower, you know, helping them
do certain things is or I mean I've seen cases
just like in my neighborhood where the husband goes downhill
and the wife's out there mowing the lawn. Yeah, now
(44:55):
that's actually probably better physical activity. But depending on how
old you are, that might not actually be the right
type of physical activity for you either.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
Well.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
I mean, like I met with a lady just yesterday
and she has her husband in the house and we're
trying to do some stuff for to help them, and
she said, you know, to some degree, I don't want
an aid to come in to help me because I
want to take care of him. She was a nurse,
so she feels very capable from a medical standpoint that
she can handle it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
And people want certain level of privacy, I think too.
Speaker 3 (45:22):
But on the other hand, she does want some help
with the housekeeping and the lawn maintenance and all that
kind of stuff because she's having to do all of it.
And I said, you know, why don't we get a
professional professional health care advocate, somebody like we worked with
with our sister company of her home, somebody like that,
to come in and really do like a deep dive into, well,
(45:43):
what things can we help you with?
Speaker 4 (45:45):
If you don't want help on the care side, what
can we help you with?
Speaker 3 (45:48):
Or sometimes it's better to hear this isn't a good
idea from a qualified professional knows it's really not a
good idea because I know how I personally feel about it.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
There are I don't think that's a great scenario, right,
But I'm not a medical professional and I'm not trained
to be one, And there are, but there are people
that are, right, and I'd rather get somebody in that
in that house, yeah, to see and make an evaluation
that would be a lot more meaningful than the one
that I can give.
Speaker 5 (46:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
I always think about this because.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
My grandfather didn't let us really do much of anything,
but he did let us mow the lawn. So he
must have really hated mowing the lawn, right because my
cousin did it before I did, which meant he wasn't
necessarily super old, okay, right, because I mean, and my
grandfather died when he was eighty four. I had probably
been mowing the lawn for five or six years at
that point, and I took over from another cousin.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
It was just like a passing of the torch kind
of thing for the family.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, I mean, and they gave us money for it,
more than they should have, right.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
Not a lot, yeah, but something you know.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, I think literally we're talking like twelve dollars or whatever,
but like you know, mid nineties we're talking.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, so that was like, that's that's like twelve meals
McDonald's in the nineties from the dollar menu.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Well they had that Tuesday there were thirty nine cent handburgers,
forty nine cent cheeseburgers. Got the McDonald's and Clifton Park
and no, lie, my brother would buy ten cheeseburgers.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
I don't know that he ever ate all ten.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
But he did, right, it's the principal Yes, yeah, good
for you, Mark.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
So anyway, but I think, you know, we're getting to
the point where it's time for the moral of the story, right,
And there are resources available to people. If you're feeling
that you're overwhelmed, reach out to somebody, whether that's a
family member so they can reach out to someone like us,
(47:41):
or a care coordinator.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
You don't have to go it alone. There's a lot
of solutions out there, right, Some solutions are better than others.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Yeah, I mean, there even are online communities and things
for solo seniors or right elder. I mean sometimes we
hear the term elder orphans.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
Right.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
I do not like the term. I just wanted to
throw it out there because you may see that term.
Essentially it's it's older folks when they don't have literally
anybody else, right, no spouse, no children. So there are
even ways to connect with other people in similar circumstances
where you can kind of become a team and maybe
get some to get some people in your life to
just commiserate with.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Who's that that's my aging buddy? Yeah, you know, yeah,
but I mean I'm being flippant, but.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
Whatever works, yeah, right, it's better than nothing.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
I mean I literally suggested to my friend that his
mom and his mother.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
In law live together, didn't they do that?
Speaker 2 (48:36):
They ultimately didn't end up doing it, okay, but like
it was a really good solution. Yeah, as long as
they didn't hate each other, right, which they didn't. Yeah,
they'd known each other for a long time. They both
needed help. We know that when two people live in
a house and they need help, we get more hours,
yeah right, yep, and you get more safety because you
got somebody looking after you.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
So sometimes you just got to think a little outside
the box.
Speaker 4 (48:59):
I have like elder step brothers in my head now,
so thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
I mean, never know, right, I mean I think the
activities will be slightly different. Yeah, you know, you know,
playing shuffleboard or pinuckle or something.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Can watch cops, right.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
All right, Well we're coming up to the end of
the show. So certainly if you are in this situation,
your parents are in this situation, reach out to us.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Consultation is free.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
We'll go through what we think we can do for you,
and then you can decide what you want to do.
You can call us at the office at five one
eight four five nine. You can send us an email
at info at puro law dot com. That's p I
E R R O Law dot com and don't forget
(49:46):
Frank and I'll be doing a medicaid Monday. You can
go to the website and also find us there.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Thank you for listening. Have a great weekend everybody. We
will talk to you soon
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