In order to be eligible for Medicaid, you cannot have recently transferred assets. Congress does not want you to move into a nursing home on Monday, give all your money to your children (or whomever) on Tuesday, and qualify for Medicaid on Wednesday. So it has imposed a penalty on people who transfer assets without receiving fair value in return.
Michael Monteforte, Jr. is the founding attorney of Monteforte Law, P.C., an estate planning and elder law firm in Woburn, Massachusetts. He was admitted to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in January 2002 and to federal practice in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, in March 2006. He has practiced estate planning and elder law in Massachusetts for over twenty years.