Many happily married seniors are facing a previously unthinkable proposition: Â terminate their marriage or risk losing a majority of their savings to medical expenses, leaving both of them with little savings to enjoy their twilight years, regardless of how well they planned in advance. Â How can this happen? Â With medical technology ever improving, allowing us to live longer, most individuals will spend at least a few years in a nursing or retirement facility during our lifetimes. Â With the baby boomer generation approaching retirement age, more and more of us will fall into this category. Â How will these long-term care expenses be paid? Â The choices are private savings, long-term health care insurance, Medicaid or a combination. Â This is where the dilemma occurs.
For example, consider a devoted husband and wife living financially comfortable in retirement. Â Husband has a series of strokes and reaches the point physically where wife can no longer care for him. Â He must move indefinitely into a retirement facility where staff is available to care for him on a full-time basis. Â How will his care be paid? Â The couple can pay for his care but at $6,000 per month or more the money can be depleted quickly. Â The … Read More... “Divorce As A Medicaid Planning Tool?”