A friend's husband will be in a facility soon under Title 19. If he passes away in a year or two, would she be able to continue receiving his pension and social security after the facility receives all that it is due for his care? Do they have to give an accounting of how much they are owed and how much they are getting? She is very worried about losing those funds forever, since she is younger and very healthy. The facility lawyer has told her it is gone forever, and the pension managers say that isn't true. She is very confused.
Correct? If that is the case, she becomes the "community spouse"as such the asset ceiling is higher (than the 2K) and is limited to ½ of couple's joint assets.This is “spousal protected resource allowance” equal to one-half of the countable resources but not more than $109,560 in 2011. I think it’s this amount for all states.
The $ in the asset group is hers and is not due to the NH to pay for his care ever.
For spouse's there's other issues related to income (not assets), like how to deal with income if she still works or if she never worked and her only income is his SS &/or retirement and she need's to get a MMMNA - minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance. (Say that 3 times fast!) These are all sticky, you'll likely need someone to work with her in figuring that out like an elder care attorney. The MMMNA is based on your state's AVERAGE and seem to be on the low side for all states and often the community spouse will have to do an appeal to the state for more MMMNA or get a court order for spousal support to get more monthly support.
So say she doens't work and is totally dependent on his income from SS and his pension. Let's say that comes to $ 1,900.00 a month and her state has MMMNA set at $ 1,000 a month. Then every month, she has to pay the NH $900 a month which is the difference. So she is left with 1K. You can see why often they have to do an appeal for the MMMNA amount especially if there is a mortgage payment or there are children and she doesn't work.
Now when he dies, IF they have been married more than 10 years, she can get his spouse SS benefits and it will be at a somewhat lower rate. As geewiz said usually for older pensions the same thing happens but without the 10 yr rule. If there is a prior wife sometimes they too can draw the SS and sometimes even the pension if they have not remarried. My mom gets my dad's federal employee survivor pension and it's about 1/3 lower than what they got when my dad was alive and she will get it until she dies.