Medi-Cal recovery under current California law is limited to nursing home care, home and community-based services, and related expenses paid after age 55. Recovery is limited to amounts from the probate estate. Assets that bypass probate, such as those in a properly funded living trust, held in joint tenancy, or transferred through a valid transfer-on-death deed, are often outside the recovery base when structured correctly. There is no recovery while a surviving spouse or registered domestic partner is alive. A homestead of modest value may qualify for a hardship waiver, but the Bay Area threshold makes qualifying properties rare. For households without marriage or registered domestic partnership, protections can be significantly weaker, and chosen family members are not recognized unless named in estate documents.
"Under current California law, recovery is limited to nursing home care, home and community‑based services, and related expenses paid after age 55-and only from your probate estate. Assets in a properly funded living trust, in joint tenancy, or transferred by a valid transfer‑on‑death deed generally bypass probate and are often outside the recovery base when structured correctly."
"There is no recovery while a surviving spouse or registered domestic partner is alive. A "homestead of modest value" may qualify for a hardship waiver, but, in the Bay Area, that threshold-50 percent or less of the county's average home price-means virtually no San Francisco property qualifies. For households that are neither married nor registered, that gap in protection is significant."
"The law now recognizes marriage equality, but everyday LGBTQ+ life still includes long‑term partners, ex‑partners who remain family, and caregivers who function like relatives. The state's recovery rules, however, follow paper-marriage certificates, domestic partnership registrations, signed estate documents-not social reality."
"A surviving spouse or registered domestic partner gets specific protections; a long‑term partner who is neither may not. A close friend or chosen family member is invisible to the system unless named in your doc"
Read at San Francisco Bay Times
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