Paying for Care
What home care, assisted living, and nursing homes cost in your state, and — the part most cost calculators skip — who actually pays for each one. Medicare, Medicaid, VA Aid and Attendance, long-term care insurance, and out of pocket, laid out plainly, with the programs you may already qualify for.
Medicare Savings Programs and Extra Help
Four programs pay the Medicare premiums of people with limited income, and a fifth pays most drug costs. Answer two questions to see where your figures sit against the federal limits for QMB, SLMB, QI and QDWI, plus Part D Extra Help. Those federal numbers are a floor many states exceed, so this is an estimate, never a decision.
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VA Aid and Attendance Calculator
Aid and Attendance is paid as the gap between a maximum yearly pension rate and your income for VA purposes — and unreimbursed medical expenses above five percent of that rate come off your income first. This estimate shows both figures, so you can see why people in assisted living qualify. Not legal advice; accredited representatives help free.
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Care Cost Comparer
What in-home care, adult day programs, assisted living and nursing homes cost in your state, converted to monthly and yearly figures from the hours you actually expect to use. The survey publishes each kind of care in a different unit, so the arithmetic that makes them comparable is ours, and it is printed beside every number. Estimate only.
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How Will We Pay for Care? A Funding Screener
Seven questions, none of them about who you are, and the answer is a list of offices rather than a verdict: Medicare Savings Programs, Medicaid long-term care, VA pension, your free state counselors, the area agency on aging, and an elder-law attorney if property is involved. Each one names who decides and what to bring. Estimate only, never a determination.
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What a Funeral Costs
The national median for a funeral with viewing and burial, and for one with cremation, from the industry price survey — plus what those medians leave out and the federal rule that entitles you to an itemized price list you can keep. Education only: we do not sell, quote or refer burial insurance, and never will.
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The Medicaid Look-Back and Spend-Down
Medicaid examines a five-year window before an application, looking for gifts and property transfers, and one found there creates a penalty period that starts only once the money has already run out. Here is how that works, how fast a spend-down happens, and a printable worksheet. Not legal advice — your state agency decides.
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Who Pays for What: Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, Insurance, and You
Six care situations against the five payers that actually exist, with a plain verdict in every cell. The short version is that Medicare covers skilled care and not the custodial help most people eventually need, which is why one column is almost entirely empty and why so many households are caught out.
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Final Expense Insurance and What People Use Instead
Four ways households cover a funeral, how each is structured, and what to check before committing to any of them. Includes the comparison nobody selling a policy shows you — total premiums against the death benefit — and the VA burial allowances that families routinely fail to claim. Estimate only; no insurer is named.
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