Nursing Home’s a Poor Route to Saving Assets

In the Personal Finance column “Ways to Protect Assets From Being Wiped Out” (Oct. 13), Kathy Kristof describes a system for saving one’s assets that requires placing yourself or your partner in a nursing home that accepts Medicaid patients. She uses as her example a hypothetical couple with $600,000 in assets.

I find it hard to believe that she has known anyone condemned to living in such a nursing home or that she has visited one.

Most nursing homes do not accept Medicaid patients for the practical reason that they cannot make a large enough profit. To suggest placing additional burdens on a system meant to help those of limited income means that the facilities available to your Medicaid partner receive less and less per patient from the government, and become even more undesirable.

In fact, she is describing a solution that keeps assets intact by abandoning your partner to a living hell. Once on Medicaid, no upgrading is allowed.

This is not the kind of information that is going to be of interest to most of your readers.

Someone should research the alternatives, and there are a number, such as insurance plans that would cover part of nursing-care costs; retirement homes with nursing facilities; sharing homes with caretakers; moving to another state where facilities are more desirable and affordable, and the support of an equitable national health care act.

HELEN GROVE MEYER

Laguna Hills