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Qualifying for Medicaid

Would the cost of legal expenses incurred to find out how to qualify for Medicaid be deductible? This advice would include suggestions on ways to dispose of or safeguard income producing property, such as savings and a Roth-conversion IRA and the purchase of an annuity - i.e., "care, preservation, and management of income producing property." If an inter vivos "special needs trust" could be created, I might be able to pay health insurance premiums and other medical expenses with its income or corpus. Were it not for the fact that this is a "special needs trust", I know that I could deduct the cost of many of these medical expenses. The trust is treated like a grantor trust for tax purposes. I presume I would be able to deduct otherwise deductible expenses that were paid by the trust, but this trust is one with which I am not familiar. I must lower our assets because Medicaid has a financial requirement that what it considers our estate to be is less than a certain dollar amount.

Thoughts? Thanks

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No. Legal expenses are deductible when they are incurred in an attempt to recover taxable income.

Reply to
Brew1

the bad news In most of the states that i know of, you can not have *any income ( outside of SSI/SSDI/very low none wage{ wage income means no medicaid})* allmost any( over $250( again ssi/ssdi/ssa part of this a month)income kills the medicaid grant. and you get no income producing property at all.( rented out condon/house etc no annuity etc. also you have to be not able to work to get Medicaid.you also can not have over $5,000 in all your accts so a IRA kills it also.( also no owning more then one car no boats etc they will want you to sell them before even looking at a grant) if you are over 65 you can get SSI ( even if no work for SSA, and you get Medicare ,Note Medicare is not the same as Medicaid they do not have the same rules for income/what you can own/how much you can make etc. in summery in 99% of cases if the IRS can tax it ( income) you can not get Medicaid. in my $day job I help people get onto both Medicaid and medicare food stamps etc ( this is for Oregon/maine/Mass/NY/Cali william wheeler

i.e., "care,

Reply to
wuffa

This sounds pretty restrictive. Yet the combined state and federal amount spent on medicare is a "little" over 300B. So I guess the above rules still allow a lot of people to qualify.

Reply to
removeps-groups

Medicaid is not the same program as Medicare in one just the the feds pay for it with payroll taxes (also known as FICA taxes,)and most workers get it at 65 (medicare)

Medicaid is payed for by both the states and the feds and is funded mostly out of income taxes and It is a means-tested program IE you have to be poor and also and people with disabilities. Being poor, or even very poor, does not necessarily qualify an individual for Medicaid. each sate has it own rules and if the state says no you are out of luck not like Medicare.. it is estimated that approximately 60 percent of poor Americans are not covered by Medicaid Medicaid funding has become a major budgetary issue for many states over the last few years, with states, on average, spending 16.8% of state general funds on the program( NOTE ..state general funds from state taxes)

so Congress established both Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's social services programs. Medicare is a federal program specifically designed for Americans over age 65 and for some people under 65 who have disabilities.

In 1984, Medicaid paid for 30 percent of the total public expenditures for health insurance for the aged and disabled and Medicare paid for

70 percent. Projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicate that, by 2012, Medicaid?s share will rise to 45 percent, while Medicare?s share will fall to 55 percent.

wuffa / wheeler

Reply to
wuffa

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