I’m following an online debate at FinancialPlanning.com about the ethics of spending down assets to qualify for Medicaid - an issue most of us will face, for parents or ourselves.
On the one hand, you have your "spending down their assets to qualify for Medicaid is against the law and cheats us as taxpayers out of money that they should have been paying" contingent. On the other hand, you have your "if a person is spending down/gifting assets in accordance with current law, then they are not 'cheating' anybody" proponents. Then you have your professionals, who say, "as financial planners, our obligations are to our clients, not to the U.S. government or other citizens as a whole. To not take advantage of what opportunities lie in the way that laws are currently written and interpreted is doing a disservice to those to whom we have a fiduciary obligation."
Which, of course, is the logic many of us use when paying taxes. Go to the site and follow along. It’s fascinating.
