Nursing home care can cost more than a mortgage, a college tuition payment, and a car note combined. And it can continue month after month. Andy sits down with Maggie Sutton, a Certified Elder Law Attorney, to make Medicaid planning feel less like folklore and more like a set of rules you can actually work with. If you have ever wondered whether you “make too much” to qualify, or why families still run out of money even with solid retirement income, we lay out the math behind long-term care and Medicaid in plain language.

We dig into the two buckets that drive Medicaid eligibility: income and assets. Maggie explains the current income cap concept (including the $2,982 figure) and when a Qualified Income Trust, also known as a Miller Trust, can help someone qualify even with higher monthly income. Then we shift to asset limits, countable versus exempt assets, what happens for single applicants versus married couples, and why details like the house, vehicles, and retirement accounts in payout status can change the outcome.

From there, we get into the big gotchas: the five-year lookback and the penalty period triggered by gifts or transfers, plus the part many families miss entirely - Medicaid estate recovery after death.

We also walk through practical tools used in real plans, including spousal strategies around home ownership and a Medicaid compliant annuity example designed to protect the spouse while meeting the rules.

Subscribe for more planning conversations, share this with someone caring for aging parents, and leave a review if it helped. What Medicaid rule do you want us to explain next?

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