When first enacted with Medicare in 1965, Medicaid extended basic health care to poor people, especially children. Over the years, Congress has greatly expanded Medicaid, and it now also funds long term care in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, private homes, and other settings. While all Medicaid applicants must satisfy very restrictive financial …show more content…
Medicaid is divided into two broad categories: long term care and other care. Other care includes the usual diagnostics, preventive medicine, surgeries, and treatments that we all need from time to time. Long term care Medicaid covers nearly all nursing home costs, most assisted living facility charges, and some home health aide and other expenditures to help an individual remain in a private home. All Medicaid applicants must satisfy financial eligibility criteria, but persons who seek long term care Medicaid benefits also must demonstrate that they can’t live …show more content…
However, Medicaid planning is more complicated for married people because their combined countable resources are taken into account. When only one spouse needs care, an allowance of half combined countable resources up to a cap is allowed to the spouse in the community. This community spouse resource allowance (“CSRA”) is intended to protect the spouse at home from being impoverished, but in high cost states like New Jersey, Medicaid planning to protect savings is essential to afford a community spouse a reasonable standard of living. While the CSRA cap is adjusted for inflation, it is $109,560 as of Spring