Seniors can make use of Medicaid system to cover their medical expenses. However the President has now signed a law which restricts and the use of Medicaid by middle income and wealthy seniors as senior insurance. Till then, Medicaid law was liberal where anyone could apply for Medicaid long term care. Even those who owned a luxury home could avail of this program; and this has now been eliminated with the new senior insurance program. 

Now seniors with more than $500,000 home equity cannot receive Medicaid care and those who have given any type of gift in the past five years will be penalized if they seek Medicaid long term care. These gifts include college tuition for grandchildren, wedding and graduation gifts, emergency help for family and church donations. It can be said that Medicaid aims at providing aid only to those people who don’t have money to give gifts.

This new law starts its penalty period when the senior applies for Medicaid, and not when the gift was made. So if a senior had made a $30,000 donation four years ago, and now seeks Medicaid care for $3,000 a month, Medicaid does not make any payments for 10 months even if the senior is now broke.
Seniors also have to be aware that all states are tightening the implementation of the general Medicaid rules. Rules are now in flux, and in favor of the state, making it important for you to contact your state agency that administers Medicaid for updates. So now middle income and wealthy seniors can’t rely on the government for senior insurance.

They have to make choices between self-insurance and private long term care insurance. So get yourself long term care insurance for old age instead of relying on the government. Basically, Medicaid is not a great option as with long term care coverage, you are to share an interior room with two others, with no windows. However with your own long term care insurance, you get a nice, sunny private room having big windows. Moreover nursing homes tend to care less to residents receiving aid from Medicaid.