I live in Texas, which is a community property state. Am I correct that if I win big playing the lottery, it would count as joint income, pretty much eliminating qualifying for Medicaid and forcing nursing home care to be private pay?
I haven't won yet, but just in case.
Glad & Dorianne - ages ago when Louisiana started our lottery, there was a huge Public relations build up to the first big $$ winner. Lots of media leading up & all done with the expectation that there would be the flurry of photos & videos of the beyond thrilled winning family. Ala Publishers Clearinghouse tv spots. Photography, film crew, copy & PR flacks all booked and at the ready at moments notice to go capture the happy family & use to sell future lottery sales. Billboards rented across the state, broadcast time booked. Well...... the winning ticket took like forever to even come forward to claim it as they were setting up an Inc / LLC to be “the winner” which in turn fed the funds into trusts. And for even more fun, all media requests had to go through the law firm in New Orleans that did the legal. A total bust from a PR Perspective.
Wish me luck that my $1 per week investment pays off well enough that I need to get a legal team to help me deal with everything.
But I think this question is really not a basic one to Medicaid and you might want to do some research on your own. I'm not even sure a Medicaid counselor could advise you as the question is so unique.
If you really are counting on winning, you might want to consider consulting a Medicaid attorney, and if the answer isn't conducive to your plans, consider investing the funds for lottery tickets into even a basic savings account or some type of investment that does provide even a limited return, a guaranteed one.
For what it is worth, I think a million plus dollar community property prize would put my wife way above the $2000 asset limit in Texas. I was hoping someone would address that single technical point.
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