The city's largest daily newspaper covering all of Southern California and with a national readership.

"Los Angeles attorney Zoran K. Basich is a Medi-Cal specialist who travels up and down the state giving lectures on how to qualify for tax-supported nursing home care."...

"[Medicaid] is not a poverty program," Basich said. "In fact, it is a planned program. [If] you plan yourself on Medicaid, there is no problem at all. The problem is that most people don't know that. ... [Medicaid] is something you've paid into all your life [by paying state and federal taxes]."

"Middle Class Get Nursing Care"

The only Los Angeles publication exclusively serving the city's downtown business area.

"Basich works to allocate assets so a long-term healthcare crisis doesn't leave the family in poverty. ... [I]t's hard to argue with his results." ...

“Medicaid runs two different programs,” explains Basich, “the welfare program for indigent people and the long-term care program. Long-term care Medicaid has a whole different set of rules that don’t have anything to do with whether you’re poor or not. It just considers your assets and what manner you have them in. … We’ve been doing this 27 years. The system is available and you don’t have to lose your home or your savings.

"Middle Generation Copes With Long-Term Care"

A business news publication serving the long-term-care industry.

"Government funding for Medicaid is just like Social Security and Medicare to provide certain levels of care for people who have paid into the system." Basich says. "People have paid more money into the system than they will ever get out. It's a matter of how well these funds are being managed by the government."

"Planning Payoff"

Many people have been advised by other lawyers and estate planners to create living trusts or buy long-term-care insurance that would pay nursing home costs. Experience has taught Nursing Home Solutions that neither provides adequate protection to cover the sometimes astronomical costs of skilled care.

The city's largest and oldest legal and political newspaper

"Estate Planners who ignore the interplay between federal and state benefits and living trusts," says Basich, "not only could block a critical source of revenue should their clients require long-term care, but also risk the assets the family has put in trust should the benefits be utilized. They are creating a 'lose-lose' situation."

"Cost of Living"

The city’s leading daily newspaper.

"[Long-term-care insurance] is not the panacea that it is portrayed as. If insurers told you this was a partial way of paying for your care, that would be a different thing."...

"Basich said policies that cover the bulk of costs in a nursing home had annual premiums ranging from $7,000 for an individual to $12,000 for a couple."

"Long-Term Care Insurance Necessary Gamble for Baby Boomers"

A leading publisher of business and financial news.

"Living trusts can actually endanger the financial security of seniors when they become ill with cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, or other illnesses and need long-term nursing home care, according to leading financial consultant to the elderly Zoran Basich.

"Living Trusts Fail as Planning Tools for Long Term Care"

"The problem with this approach [long-term-care insurance] is that it not only advocates a transfer of wealth from the middle class to some of the wealthiest and profit-conscious institutions in this country," says Basich, “but it also takes us farther down the slippery slope of privatization of all government benefits. This would leave the care of the most vulnerable among us in the hands of corporations relentlessly seeking the good of the bottom line, not those they serve."

"NHS Urges Media to Educate Public About Misunderstood Medicaid Benefit Program"

In 1995, “elder law” was considered a relatively new practice, and lawyers and financial consultants were just beginning to become concerned with the needs of the country’s aging population. Not so, Zoran Basich, who for the past 20 years had been advocating for fixed-income seniors, at that time, had already perfected a system that helped the elderly and their families qualify for long-term-care Medi-Cal benefits.

The Problem With Revocable Living Trusts By Zoran K. Basich, Elder-Care Attorney

More and more "investment advisers" are selling trusts as vehicles for preventing probate, avoiding taxes and providing for estate management. Yet many people do not recognize that trusts are useful estate-planning tools only if you drop dead! Approximately 40 million baby boomers soon will require increasingly expensive medical care during a longer life expectancy than their parents. As they become ill with cancer, strokes, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease and other debilitating illnesses, that care will be delivered in a skilled nursing home setting. The average stay at a nursing home can easily eat up $60,000 to $100,000 a year, and in some cases can last 10 or more years.

With proper planning, most nursing home expenses can be paid for under the long-term Medi-Cal program (the state equivalent of the federal Medicaid program), without impoverishing the patient’s spouse and without depleting the family estate. Medi-Cal is not just a poverty program. Middle-class taxpayers can qualify if they comply with applicable rules and regulations, which are complex and subject to frequent amendment.

Living trusts vs. estate planning for long-term care. The "income and principal clause" in most of today's trusts obligates the person administering your trust to take whatever steps necessary to make certain you are cared for. This clause can force you or your spouse to use all trust assets for healthcare until the trust is depleted. Assets held in a revocable trust at death are subject to an estate claim. The State Director of Health Services is entitled to reimbursement for every cent of Medi-Cal benefits paid to the patient after age 55. That claim takes priority over any other trust terms for payments to others, including spouses and children.

Under Medi-Cal regulations, typical trust assets – real property, stocks, bank or investment accounts, vehicles and income – are not exempt from Medi-Cal reimbursement claims. Those same assets, if held in a manner other than a trust, could be exempted from reimbursement. California has the authority to place an estate claim against the property of a Medi-Cal recipient, including property that passes upon death to the recipient's heirs through a revocable living trust . This means that trust assets are viewed as cash available to privately pay the cost of a nursing home stay.

A living trust is not compatible with effective estate planning for long-term illness and inheritance preservation. Living trusts can and will interfere with your ability to rely on excellent government benefits. The good news is that other options are available to preserve your estate and ensure your loved ones' financial stability.

Zoran K. Basich, co-founder of the nonprofit Grey Law and principal in Glendale-based NHS, has spent nearly 30 years helping seniors and their families solve legal and financial problems. Contact him at (800) 773-6467. For more information or to order a FREE video or DVD about long-term-care planning, log on to www.nhscare.com.

Inside Case Management Newsletters

• Avoiding Malpractice in Case Management - August 2003 - Volume 10, Number 8

Los Angeles Times

• Legal Ploys Let Middle Class Get Medi-Cal Nursing Care Aid - July 17, 1995