So, what if you give all of your “stuff” away to your kids and then go on Medicaid? I bet medicaid pays for it. My wife worked as a cytotech for many years and most insurance plans only allowed 1 pap test a year but if you were on medicaid you could get one every week if you wanted. There are numerous examples of this I’m sure.
There is a little rule about the asset shift. You have to wait a certain period of time to go on Medicaid if you, for instance, sign over your house to your children. If the rules aren’t followed, Medicaid will pursue those assets. One of the reasons that Medicaid is so increasingly expensive is that otherwise well off married couples are allowed to divide their assets, wait the time period, and then the one who needs to be in a nursing home goes on Medicaid. That is why taxpayers are being charged through the nose for expensive nursing home care for the well off. People are allowed to conserve their personal assets instead of spending them down, and the taxpayer pays. Watch outside a nursing home for a couple of hours and you will see a visiting spouse drive up in their new luxury car to visit the spouse on Medicaid.