Book tells how to protect savings in times of ill health

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR LIFE SAVINGS FROM CATASTROPHIC ILLNESS AND NURSING HOMES, by Harley Gordon with Jane Daniel, 183 pages, $18.95. Add $2.50 for mail order to Financial Planning Institute Inc., P.O. Box 135, Boston, Mass. 02258.

This is a hot potato. Attorney Harley Gordon’s guide is beamed with laserlike intensity at the solution to the plight of middle-class senior citizens faced with financial ruin from long-term nursing or other catastrophic institutional care costs. A decade ago, as host of a Boston radio call-in show, “Legal Talk,” Gordon was startled by the number of calls he received from “frightened people who were facing bankruptcy from staggering expenses incurred when a family member needed a nursing home.” Back then, he did not know how to help them. “Medicare and private insurance do not cover the cost of long-term care,” he writes. “When one spouse is admitted to a nursing home, in only 13 weeks on average, the couple’s entire life savings are wiped out.” Thereafter, he continues, Medicaid steps in to pick up the nursing home cost. And for both spouses all control over their money vanishes along with the dignity, security and independence they have worked all their lives to attain.

The more deeply he probed the subject, the more firmly committed he became to finding a solution. Hard-working middle America toils for all its working years to save for retirement, pays taxes that support programs on which those less fortunate live, and provides the stability without which the structure of democracy would collapse. Yet for those in their graying years there is no safety net, only ruin, with Medicaid as the last resort. Incensed, Gordon reasoned that while of course they should pay their fair share, why should they not be instructed in strategies that would allow them to avail themselves of Medicaid without having to impoverish themselves first? “Every city in America has thousands of lawyers whose job it is to help wealthy people and corporations avoid as much tax as legally possible,” Gordon said, adding: “What I do is the same thing. Only I help the little people.”

Gordon emphasizes that it is not his intent to instruct readers how to hide all their assets and claim poverty. His aim is only to help the middle class, when faced with catastrophic illness or nursing care, to protect the balance of their assets. And he strongly recommends that since the practice of Medicaid is highly specialized, those wishing to do so should confer with a lawyer who specializes in this field. He also advises that people must set up the necessary protective asset shields at least 30 months before entering a nursing home.

Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and stroke are but a few of the maladies the elderly fear. They are the black holes in the space of old age. With increased longevity, the nightmare is rapidly becoming epidemic. “If you are over 65, you may become the one out of every six people confined to a nursing home for some period of time. … Over the age of 80, your chances are 50-50.” Government and private industry have not yet come up with the answers, says Gordon, and until they do, individuals must use what legal means are available. Unfortunately, the only current legal means is Medicaid.

In clear, shirt-sleeve language the author lays out the steps necessary to protect one’s home from a Medicaid lien; the caveats of nursing home insurance; ways to shield assets even if a family member is already in a nursing home; how to negotiate with a nursing home; pitfalls of guardianships and conservatorships; the basics of Medicaid (countable, non-countable, inaccessible assets, Medicaid trusts, Spousal Impoverishment Act), how to avoid financial disaster even when you don’t have time to protect your assets; and the ways children can help parents too infirm to act on their own behalf. An index and section of state-by-state charts augment the efficiency of this highly charged handbook.

Gordon realizes he has raised the hackles of the mighty and sundry others, but as he put it crisply in one of his interviews: “Some of the same people who are yelling about closing the loopholes have been in to see me to get their parents on Medicaid.” And he puts it in a nutshell with this terse observation: “I represent people who have worked hard all their lives, who have never been on welfare. It took them years to build up their assets. They should be able to die with their principal intact.”

Founder of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and current member of that organization’s board of directors, the personable 43-year-old Gordon is in great demand as a lecturer on issues that concern the elderly. He is also a frequent consultant to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s support organizations. His guide plows a wide field, not only for the elderly but for children with parents in their 60s, prudent people who recognize the wisdom of planning ahead, and those not yet senior citizens but who are nevertheless faced with catastrophic illness involving an institution or nursing home. “Providence,” wrote Voltaire, “is always on the side of the strongest battalions.”

Bea Goodrich’s reviews are a monthly Books in Review feature. Goodrich also writes a review column, and is the author of the award-winning nature story series, “Happy Hollow Stories by Judge Tortoise.”