SC Law Harsh On Nursing Home Spouses at Home.

MediCAID is a government program that will pay for the cost of nursing home care for those who can qualify medically and financially.  Medicare may pay for the initial part of nursing home stay, but Medicaid is a long-term payor. For single persons, the rule is rather simple. Eligibility is established when cash assets are reduced to $2,000. For married couples, the rules are different and a bit more generous, but, can be harsh nonetheless. Particularly if your spouse is in a SC nursing home.

In 49 states a healthy spouse can keep the marital home (if equity is less than $500,000), and, up to $109,560.00. The only state that deviates from this is…South Carolina. 

The Palmetto State only allows the healthy spouse to keep the marital home and $66,480.

The assets that can be kept by the healthy spouse is called the Community Spouse Resource Allowance, or “CSRA” for short. Why SC has seen fit to be so harsh, when the other 49 states are not, is not clear. It is probably saving taxpayers some money but it is also impoverishing many healthy spouses who still have a their own lifetimes to worry about how they will support themselves. The major reason for the deviation is that the other states choose to allow the CSRA to increase every year to reflect cost-of-living allowances. When the CSRA rules were established in 1988 the CSRA  amount was $66,480. Georgia, for example, allows the healthy spouse to keep the larger $109,560 amount, and has increased the CSRA amount every year since 1988 to reflect inflation’s impact on the CSRA.

Strategies are available to reduce the impact of this harsh rule and careful planning and understanding of the Medicaid rules are essential.