However, wartime veterans and their surviving spouses, 65 years and older, may be entitled to a tax-free benefit called Aid and Attendance provided by the Department of Veteran Affairs. This can be planned for if a veteran has 90 days of active military service, one day during wartime and is discharged other than dishonorable. How can Medicaid help? Benefits can vary greatly by local area, but depending on where you live, Medicaid can likely pay for care in these three places: 1. Free home aids up to five hours a day. For example, an aide comes in the morning from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. to helpyou dress, bathe, eat, toilet, and take medication, then returns at 5 p.m. to repeat, and leaves at 8 p.m. Medicaid will also pay for optional adult day care, diapers, prescriptions, medical transportation, physical and occupational therapy, and more.You can add or hire more hours a day to this on your own if you need. 2. Care at the assisted living facility. You pay for room and board (rent and food); Medicaid will pay the care portion of the monthly bill. For example, if the assisted living costs $ 3,200 a month, Medicaid will pay $ 1,200 for care, and you pay $ 2,000 for rent for the apartment and food for the month. 3. Medicaid pays the entire nursing home bill after your personal monthly income copay. Your share of cost in a nursing home is never more than your personal monthly income. For instance, if the nursing home costs $ 10,000 a month private pay, and you only have a social security check of $ 1,000, you onlypayabout that, orslightlyless. Ifyou are married, your spouse may be entitled to keep a portion of your income for his or her own living expenses, lowering your care costs even more. Do I lose my Medicare if I’m on Medicaid? You can keep your Medicare and add Medicaid. In fact, you can choose to be on Medicaid, Medicare, and if eligible,VAbenefits, long-term care insurance and a Medicare supplemental policy all at the same time! Who qualifies for Medicaid coverage? To qualify, your cash assets are capped at $ 2,000, and there is an income cap as well. You can keep one home, most cars, and a few minoritems.Ifmarried,yourspouse(whoisnot applying forcoverage) can hold about $ 100,000 in his or her name. With the exception of the items listed above, the rest of your assets are subject to this cap. If you try to get “poor on paper” by gifting or transferring your accounts within five years of applying forMedicaid,you can incurpenalties, and you must disclose that information or you will be denied benefits and coverage. What is estate planning for Medicaid? The goal in estate planning for Medicaid is to protect assets and not always have to wait five years for eligibility. Medicaid wants you to think you must spend your life savings before you can qualify, but that is not the case. They hope you are uninformed and misled into spending down all you have in your checking, savings, CDs, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, IRAs, 401(k), brokerage accounts, cash surrender value of life insurance, and real estate. Good planning can preserve the assets that provide security for you and your family. What does estate planning for Medicaid involve? Estate planning for Medicaid includes a buffet of strategies, not a single item or document.This involves numerous techniques 41 msfocusmagazine.org