liquid assets

Max, you seem to be very knowledgeable on A&A. I don't know your background or qualifications and as a newbie I'm not questioning you but just asking for clarification and discussion. If repositioning assets is not allowed, why is there just a one day look back by the VA as compared to the 60 month look back for Medicaid? Medicaid has penalties for transferring assets during that period that delay the start of Medicaid assistance - but you're not disqualified for having done so. Clearly, Medicaid is a charity program for the poor while it appears A&A is an assistance program for those who served in the military. I have found an entire industry composed of many organizations with patriotic sounding names willing to assist in the A&A application process that claim they work closely with the VA. It seems their reason for providing this free service is to sell the veteran various asset transfer strategies including annuities, stacked gifting plans and irrevocable trusts. Some are licensed to sell insurance while others are licensed attorneys. If asset transferring is illegal why are these people in business?

I called my local Veteran's Service Officer and asked him directly if a veteran is disqualified for having transferred his assets before applying for A&A. His answer was no, that the VA only considers assets under control by the veteran at the time of application. I asked him if asset transferring was ethical and he said not to read anything into the rules. He continued to tell me that based on his experience an 89 year old veteran should not have more than $39,000 in assets to get A&A.

An 89 year old veteran with a social security benefit of $870/month as the only income and with the cost of assisted living at $3400/month and $500/month for other medical/misc. expenses would exhaust the $39,000 in just a year! The $3400/month for assisted living is on the low side in my area. Prices range from $3000/month to over $6000 with annual increases @ 10%. The A&A benefit seems stingy as compared to the benefit paid by Medicaid. Here the average Medicaid cost for a nursing home is $6700/month or about $8000 for private pay.

The liquid asset rules are ridiculous and unrealistic. Unless an 89 year old veteran is truly wealthy (multiple times the $39,000 in assets), the veteran's family will need to make up the difference to keep him out of a nursing home. It's no wonder that scam artists flourish with asset transfer strategies and prey on families desperate to provide care for a veteran. Every assisted living facility I visited provided me a brochure from one of these crooks selling these strategies under the pretext of offering to provide a free service to our veterans. It's the scam artists that are guilty of greed while the veteran's family is only guilty of caring.