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I suppose that it is possible to consider Medicaid planning as a tax dodge, and if a wealthy person hides his assets so that he can go on Medicaid, I too would find it deplorable. But most of us are not wealthy - we may have modest savings with which we had planned to live in retirement, savings which we have managed to put aside in our earlier years so that we and our spouses would not have to live out our lives in near poverty. Along comes Parkinson's - or Alzheimer's - or any of a number of diseases of old age that put us in the hands of a caregiver and then in the walls of a nursing home. The Medicaid law as I understand it says that one must first exhaust one's savings and declare poverty before one is eligible for Medicaid. If this means leaving a surviving spouse, the one who has been your caregiver, the one who has scraped and saved with you throughout life, in poverty, so be it. THIS STINKS. It gives no incentive to a frugal life when, at the end, all you have struggled for and saved for throughout life is plucked from you as you are led to a pauper's grave, your spouse to follow. Martin Bayne's letter of 30 July was followed the same day by a letter from Rita Weeks which contemplated suicide as an option. It is ironic that suicide is an option that could leave some of a family's assets in tact, save untold billions in medical care and Medicaid expense and provide dignified death to those who accept it - but, of course, it is frowned upon by much of society as well as not being legal. Looks like we've got some hard choices ahead. Arthur Hirsch [log in to unmask] Lewisville, TX