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The Medicaid-529 College Plan Debate

Medicaid can really put a dent into your college plans for your children and grandchildren if your not careful. People sometimes don't realize what the law states and are losing their 529 college funds that grandma and grandpa save unselfishly so they could have a college education. How does this happen and what can you do to stop this in it's tracks? Now you would expect that your investment in these 529 college plans would be safe and earmarked for your grandchildren of kid's college education, but not so fast. If you get sick and needed extensive stay in the hospital or nursing home and the insurance runs out. Then Medicaid is supposed to kick in.

Well, that's a yes and no answer. If you have any funds that can be used first you must use those such as a home or money that you have available. This includes the 520 college savings plan that you saved for your grandchildren. Once those funds are depleted and only then will Medicaid kick in. This means all the savings and hard work you did for your grandchildren can be wipeout very quickly. People sometimes think this will never happen to them, but it's a reality of today's life that everyone should consider.

No one can predict how your life will end up and being prepared is probably the best thing you can do. Long term care insurance is the key here. More people are starting to realize that investing in long term care insurance is a solution that makes perfect sense. You never know what the future holds and getting this insurance is a great stop gap measure to make sure nothing happens to your 529 college plans that you had made for your grandchildren. The biggest problems with the 529 college saving plans is so many plans have been made and this has really caused problems. Medicaid problems really weren’t figured into the equation and this has just been another problem that they have had to figure out. Medicaid problems have been around for a while and no one thought they would invade into the 529 college saving plans, but they have.

States are staring to realize this problem and taking steps to see what they can do about it. It's not really fair for someone to lose everything they have because of medical problems. Congress is also taking a long look into these programs as the 529 college saving programs have seen some rapid abuse lately. The worse part about the Medicaid problem is many people don't even know it exists. They could lose everything and they have no clue. This debate will probably continue for a while until something is figured out about. What's the future hold? Government intervention will be needed if this problem is going to go away anytime soon. Medicaid has been a bone of contention for a long while with different things. The 529 college savings plans were invented by and administered by the states so basically the ball will be in their court. They regulate each one and it will probably have to come from them if the problem is indeed fixed.

The Medicaid- 529 college savings plan argument will continue for a while until they can figure a fair solution to the problem. Hopefully something can be done and hard earning Americans won't have to pay the price in their golden years for just becoming sick. This problem needs to be taken care of before it grows out of control. That is something no one wants to see happen anytime soon.