Many individuals have heard of Medicaid, but don’t really know what it is and often confuse it with Medicare. Medicare is a health insurance program, and Medicaid is a needs-based assistance program. Medicaid is Federally funded, state run and county administered.

Medicaid has two basic tests that must be met for an individual to qualify for benefits. Those two tests are in regards to Income and Assets. The income test requires that an individual not earn more than $3,000 per month. If an individual does earn in excess of $3,000/mo they can still qualify, but it requires the use of Miller trusts and other strategies which I will cover in other videos. The second test is an assets test. An individual applying for Medicaid cannot have more than $2,000 worth of assets in their name. This includes, houses, bank accounts, investment accounts, life insurance, etc. Some assets are exempt and we will talk about that in a future video.

For now, it is important to know that Medicaid is a government program that will cover the cost of nursing home care for those individuals who qualify. As long as an individual earns no more than $3,000 per month and has no more than $2,000 of assets in their name, they have the ability to qualify for Medicaid. This will help ensure that everyone who needs care will receive care of some kind.