Research filial obligation laws. You may be totally on the hook to pay for his care.

Thanks, stepmom.

Medicaid spend down rules vary from state to state. No state would kick a community spouse out of the shared home to finance the care of an institutionalized spouse. It is not taken into the spend down equation. However, the state could look to recover some of the cost of care from sale of the house somewhere down the road. You already said you're consulting with an attorney, and that's a good move because the answers depend a lot on the state and the specific circumstances. I guess she's trying to protect assets she considers to be hers while also continuing to be the beneficiary on his transfer on death accounts (anywhere he has designated a beneficiary). If he is a handful and is rejecting home care, I'm not surprised she is looking to put him in a nursing home. That will get expensive quick but less than a nursing home. Home care you could maybe do for $5K per month if she deals with some of it (so less than full time). That has its own set of issues. Two of my elderly widowed neighbors had home care for a time and both had items and cash stolen from their home. One had her credit card misused. I was lucky to have the world's best nurse for my mother, but getting trust worthy caregivers isn't always easy and if you hire them, you need to be around often enough so that they know they're supervised. That's just reality and I've been down that road with my own parents, my in laws, a neighbor who had no family and another relative.

Is your stepmother retired? Does she have a pension to protect? I hear more and more about gray divorces for asset protection reasons. It used to be that women outlived men and often had been raising children, so out of the workforce, or just didn't have the ability to generate the same income as men and there was no incentive for a women to initiate divorce. I'm sure we will hear more about them although with five year lookback, I don't know if your stepmother gained anything in the long run or not.

I had a friend with very severe muscular dystrophy. She was diagnosed in her twenties and wasn't able to work much. Her husband kept her home for decades but finally divorced her so she could spend down and collect medicaid and she went to a nursing home. Very sad situation, but she knew it had to happen because he needed his retirement money to fund his own old age. He worked a trade and made a decent living, but they weren't wealthy by any means. Being sick and needing extensive care is hugely expensive.

Good luck, I know it's stressful so he's lucky you are making sure he has an advocate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think should pay for his care, OP?

Not OP, but Dad and Stepmom should pay for the care.

OP has stated repeatedly that she doesn't want or need his money, so pp's should drop this accusing line of questioning.

It's funny, if the genders were reversed and it was a stepdad abandoning a mom, the responses would be a lot different. But apparently money should only flow one way in a marriage according to some people!

No one is telling OP to pay for the care. Stepmom and Dad should pay. Stepmom should step up and care for him.

Very similar thing happened in my family, only in the reverse. It was different though, because they had been married fairly briefly--sounds like OP's dad and stepmom have been married for decades. In our case, my dad remarried within a year of my mom's death to a somewhat younger woman (55 to his 70), and boy were we all complete assholes for being taken aback by it, because he needed her to take care of him in his old age and blah blah blah.

Well, she got very sick, very fast first and dad turned tail like you would not even believe and dumped her while she was on her deathbed. Same song and dance about needing to protect himself and his assets. She had no representation and left the marriage with less than she had gone into it. Long term care ended up not being an issue because she died right after.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think should pay for his care, OP?

Not OP, but Dad and Stepmom should pay for the care.

OP has stated repeatedly that she doesn't want or need his money, so pp's should drop this accusing line of questioning.

It's funny, if the genders were reversed and it was a stepdad abandoning a mom, the responses would be a lot different. But apparently money should only flow one way in a marriage according to some people!

Anonymous wrote:What's the other option OP? Spend down all of their savings?

like married people do?

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think should pay for his care, OP?

Not OP, but Dad and Stepmom should pay for the care.

Anonymous wrote:Op again. I'm going to consult someone on Monday. I know that she was following the legal advice she got to protect herself. I just wish that she had told me what she was doing in advance so I could have gotten my dad representation to protect himself. I did speak to my dad and he I'm not sure if he even understands what happened (he is sick in the hospital right now). He also told me that he and his doctors think that he is fully capable of living at home without help and she is the only one who thinks that he needs assistance. So that needs to be sorted out - she does tend to exaggerate his problems (e.g., she'll call me and tell me he had a stroke and we'll be packing the car and then she'll call and hour later and say oh, it's not a stroke). But he also needs to understand that it is difficult for her to care for someone and live on edge wondering if they are going to fall, etc. so he may need to accept help in the house to give her a break. B/c he is still on drugs in the hospital, it wasn't the time or place for me to have that conversation with him. Thanks to everyone who provided input.

What is the discharge plan? Is stepmom dumping him in a nursing home and washing her hands? Or, will she continue to care for him? If she is dumping him, move him to a home near you.

Who do you think should pay for his care, OP?

Anonymous wrote:I can't imagine that the Medicaid look back doesn't take into account "paper divorces." If she walked away with everything in order to impoverish him for medicaid, well, I just find it hard to believe that would actually work.

They look back 5 years and anything that was in his name, such as joint accounts will be looked at. Someone stole money from my MIL and her car and much more and I did the best I could to prove it and they were ok with that but we are talking under $10,000 so they eventually approved her but not when you are talking in OP situation. I had to give them all kinds of documents, including years of bank statements and financials. Stepmom, since she is younger, has a good logic, but they should have taken LTC insurance. She may not beat the system in less he can wait 5 years for medicaid.

Op again. I'm going to consult someone on Monday. I know that she was following the legal advice she got to protect herself. I just wish that she had told me what she was doing in advance so I could have gotten my dad representation to protect himself. I did speak to my dad and he I'm not sure if he even understands what happened (he is sick in the hospital right now). He also told me that he and his doctors think that he is fully capable of living at home without help and she is the only one who thinks that he needs assistance. So that needs to be sorted out - she does tend to exaggerate his problems (e.g., she'll call me and tell me he had a stroke and we'll be packing the car and then she'll call and hour later and say oh, it's not a stroke). But he also needs to understand that it is difficult for her to care for someone and live on edge wondering if they are going to fall, etc. so he may need to accept help in the house to give her a break. B/c he is still on drugs in the hospital, it wasn't the time or place for me to have that conversation with him. Thanks to everyone who provided input.

At this point op you need to consult an elder care lawyer. DCUM can't tell you whether what your step mom did was legit or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I understand her position, I really do. She can live a long time and needs to be able to take care of herself if she gets sick. I get that. What I'm upset about is that no one was representing my dad -- that's all. My dad has rejected home care up to now but hopefully, when presented with the option of going to a nursing home he will accept that he needs home care. That would be preferable. I think that he will still want her to manage his care -- and I think that she still wants to right now. I will offer that he can come to where I live. He can't live in my house. He isn't the easiest person to live with and I would not do that to my husband or kids but there are places within 5 minutes of us and we could visit frequently. I have a very flexible work schedule (I work from home) and the hospital is 5 minute from my house. Everything is much closer than where he and his wife live compared to hospitals and nursing home, etc. But I don't think he would move and I don't think she would let him move b/c she doesn't want anyone to know about the divorce. What also makes me upset is that he had to make a decision about heart surgery and he was very clear that he liked his quality of life and wanted to maintain it and didn't want to end up in a nursing home. She pushed for the surgery (and pushed his doctors who were reluctant to do the surgery). He finally agreed and had the surgery. Now his heart is fine but everything else has gone downhill and his quality of life sucks. So he'll either end up in a hospital bed at home or in a nursing home which he didn't want. Hindsight is 20/20 but she should never have pushed so hard for the surgery.

First, these are two adults. Neither informed you, so that's on them. As far as the surgery...the story doesn't make sense. Heart surgery rarely decreases quality of life. So I'm not sure if you have been misinformed there.

Op again. Yes, it's definitely on my dad for not telling me. He improved tremendously after the heart surgery and we thought all was great. But he also has had type 2 diabetes for years and now has lots of complications from that. I said "everything else has gone downhill". The complications have nothing to do with his heart but with lots of other things that have to do with being mid-80's and having other health issues. Like I said, his heart is fine.

Anonymous wrote:I can't imagine that the Medicaid look back doesn't take into account "paper divorces." If she walked away with everything in order to impoverish him for medicaid, well, I just find it hard to believe that would actually work.

Op here. He isn't impoverished yet. But he will be if he starts spending his assets on his care. I have told him repeatedly that that is what his money is there for and that my siblings and I don't want or need it (stepmom was unhappy that he planned to leave some to his kids but in reality since it was in a joint account, it was really hers). But he lived through the depression and is very frugal and doesn't want to spend unless absolutely necessary. I need to tell him that the rainy day has arrived and it's time to spend. I don't know how much time he has left. All I know is that his quality of life is miserable right now.

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I understand her position, I really do. She can live a long time and needs to be able to take care of herself if she gets sick. I get that. What I'm upset about is that no one was representing my dad -- that's all. My dad has rejected home care up to now but hopefully, when presented with the option of going to a nursing home he will accept that he needs home care. That would be preferable. I think that he will still want her to manage his care -- and I think that she still wants to right now. I will offer that he can come to where I live. He can't live in my house. He isn't the easiest person to live with and I would not do that to my husband or kids but there are places within 5 minutes of us and we could visit frequently. I have a very flexible work schedule (I work from home) and the hospital is 5 minute from my house. Everything is much closer than where he and his wife live compared to hospitals and nursing home, etc. But I don't think he would move and I don't think she would let him move b/c she doesn't want anyone to know about the divorce. What also makes me upset is that he had to make a decision about heart surgery and he was very clear that he liked his quality of life and wanted to maintain it and didn't want to end up in a nursing home. She pushed for the surgery (and pushed his doctors who were reluctant to do the surgery). He finally agreed and had the surgery. Now his heart is fine but everything else has gone downhill and his quality of life sucks. So he'll either end up in a hospital bed at home or in a nursing home which he didn't want. Hindsight is 20/20 but she should never have pushed so hard for the surgery.

First, these are two adults. Neither informed you, so that's on them. As far as the surgery...the story doesn't make sense. Heart surgery rarely decreases quality of life. So I'm not sure if you have been misinformed there.