Money & Law

Elder Law Attorney Jim Koewler talks about the dynamics of the legal side of elder care. Your elder care attorney can be your greatest asset. Jim talks about some of the changes that have happened during the pandemic. For instance, It's easier to stay on Medicaid and easier to get on Medicaid, but the general lack of ability to pay for long-term care hasn't changed.

What is a Medicaid spend down? Elder law attorney Jim Koewler joins Suzanne Newman to answer this question, and shows how it differs if you're single or married. With a single person, if they want VA coverage, they have the same asset limits of $130K. If they want Medicaid long-term care coverage, they need to reduce assets to $2K, or their state's level, which is very different from the VA level. How you do that is through a spend down.

Here is a guide to help people who are worried about long term care costs in the future. There are three basic strategies: do nothing, buy insurance, or give away assets. When giving away assets, there are two approaches: direct gifts, and an irrevocable trust. This segment focuses on direct gifts. A PowerPoint presentation accompanies this segment — watch this segment on YouTube’s Answers For Elders channel.

A Power of Attorney is a legal document that protects you and protects your senior loved one. It basically says if your loved one...

In episode 5 of the Estate Planning Made Easy podcast, David T. Phillips reveals key investments that either postpone taxes or accumulate totally income and capital gains tax free.

Brynne Malone, the owner and founder of Aging Solutions NW, joins Suzanne to talk about trip wires when it comes to the financial plan for your aging years, or the finances of your senior loved ones. Financial wellness is one of the 8 foundational principles of wellness featured in the Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.

We sign all sorts of paperwork when a senior loved one is admitted to a nursing home, assisted living, or memory care community. But often we don't know what we're signing. When a senior living community threatens to discharge or evict a loved one, certain rules apply to those communities that take Medicare or Medicaid, regardless of whether your loved one is using those programs. Elder law attorney Jim Koewler joins Suzanne to talk about those rules.

Emily Schwarz cites a variety of ways to help pay for senior care, including long term insurance policies, life insurance, reverse mortgages, and tax deductions.

A true estate planning attorney helps you craft a logical distribution plan that has true dynasty provisions avoiding the expenses of probate, blessing multiple generations. In this episode of the Estate Planning Made Easy podcast, David T. Phillips explains how this can be done by ignoring Portability, and establishing an A/B Credit Shelter Trust. Using this little-known estate planning technique, you not only avoid probate, the Credit Shelter “B” Trust can grow to unimaginable sums with absolutely no future federal or state estate taxes. What’s more, this tax-free growth can last as long as there are assets in the trust.

Estate planning expert David T. Phillips explains how proper gifting will not only give the giver fulfillment during their life, it can produce generations of powerful, productive people. He also shows you how to leverage your annual gifts to the max.