Baby Boomers Are Losing Their Retirement to This

speaker-0 (00:05.038)
Hey folks, welcome back. Thanks for joining us again. Today we have Harry Margolis. Harry is a lawyer who specializes in elder law, which I thought was most appropriate for this audience. Harry, thanks for joining us. It always sounds better if it’s coming from the person that I’m talking with. So why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about you.

speaker-1 (00:30.99)
Okay, thank you for including me in your project, Neil. So as Neil said, as you said, I am an elder law attorney. I’ve been practicing elder law for almost 40 years now. I got in on the ground floor before most people knew what it was. And I got into it kind of by chance. I got a law school, was in New York. I moved to Boston working for a big firm. Didn’t feel I would actually fit into the big firm in some ways.

but one thing they did, which was great is as a, part of the pro bono commitment, they staffed one position at greater Boston elderly legal services. And every four months, another associate would go, go over there and pick up the caseload. So I volunteered for that and I, and they let me do that. And I went there and the work was mostly landlord tenant, work protecting older seniors from being evicted.

through because of gentrification, other things. And I became aware of this new field, which was taking what had been really legal services work, helping people qualify for Medicaid, which can be quite complicated. but, and I’m not sure who of your viewers know what Medicaid is, but it’s the U.S. really healthcare insurance for the poor.

But unlike most health insurance, it also pays for nursing home care. And so most people can’t afford to pay the high cost of nursing home care for very long. And often even middle income people spend down and then qualify for Medicaid. And that’s a big core of what elder law attorneys do. And it was just starting 40 years ago. And…

So I was able to get in on the ground floor and get got started doing a lot of that Medicaid planning. It’s expanded a bit in recent decades. So it’s not just nursing home care and pays for some home health care and some assisted living care, but that’s often more complicated. But anyways, I became aware of this new field, decided not to go back to the law firm. And I went out and just hung up my shingle. And as I often…

speaker-1 (02:47.816)
Say or said back then, I didn’t know what he was doing, but I didn’t have any clients either. So it didn’t matter. and I learned as I went along and, and as I said, been doing that for 40 years. We now have a 12 lawyer firm in the suburbs of Boston, but I’ve always done other stuff on the side. So I started writing newsletters for lawyers in the field, a forms, spoke a portfolio series of, that I edited.

They’re all still being published. I’m really that involved anymore, but they’re being published by Walters Clure, a legal publisher. And then probably now, how many years ago now? 25 years ago, I started a website for consumers called elderlawanswers.com. And then subsequently one called special needsanswers.com because a lot of this people who do elder law, lawyers who do elder law.

Also do special needs planning because there’s a lot of the same skills, state planning, public benefits knowledge. So we also did that and we had several hundred lawyers around the country who were members of both sites and who provide representation. And then on the sites, we provided a lot of consumer information about these fields. And I sold those, I guess, for now, but they’re still continuing.

so, and at this point, I’m, I guess I’ve wound down a lot of that. I’m winding down the law practice firms continuing, but I only have a few legacy clients myself. And I’m writing about the, the coming elder care crisis. Cause, in the United States, there are still about 65 million baby boomers who range in age from, I think 62 to.

80 now and they’re getting older. And as they get older, the need for care is going to increase almost exponentially. The number of people over 85 in the United States is going to almost triple from 6.7 million today to 18 million in 2050. So at the same time, the need for care is going to triple. And I don’t know about Canada, but in the United States, we’re definitely not ready for it.

speaker-1 (05:14.271)
So I’ve been trying to ring the alarm. So I have a sub stack in my own podcast where I interview experts in the field.

speaker-0 (05:20.244)
Interesting. this field is only, it sounds like maybe 40 years old, correct? Okay. The way I found you was I went, I was talking with somebody else, one of my other guests who had mentioned that she also had gotten into elder law at the beginning. And I wanted to find somebody that would specialize in elder law. And I found an association of

speaker-1 (05:27.928)
Yes.

speaker-1 (05:48.876)
Yes. You heard about the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys.

speaker-0 (05:49.943)
lawyers.

speaker-0 (05:54.636)
Right. So is that right across the country? Is that just for you’re in New York, correct?

speaker-1 (06:00.822)
I’m in Boston. You’re in Massachusetts. Yeah. So the National Academy of Elderly Law Attorneys, like its title says, is a national organization. And it does have chapters, probably a couple dozen chapters in different states across the country. know in Massachusetts, we have a very strong chapter. So there’s both local programming and then the national programming.

The national organization has an annual conference, which I plan to attend. I used to attend every one for like the first 20 years, and now only some of them, but it’s going to be in Milwaukee next month. And I haven’t been, I don’t think I’ve ever been to Milwaukee. So it’s an opportunity to see Milwaukee. it’s a great organization that supports the lawyers doing the work. was, I remember the first meeting was,

was really fantastic because then as I said, it was a new field and the people who were getting into it were really pioneers in different parts of the country and there weren’t a whole lot of other elder law attorneys. And we got together for a conference, the first conference in Tucson, Arizona. And all of a sudden we have found all these other like-minded people who were our brothers and sisters in the field. And it was…

really empowering at that point. Now it’s going to become a little more established and maybe not as exciting that way, but still a terrific group and a terrific organization.

speaker-0 (07:35.704)
So define for me what elder law covers. You’ve mentioned landlord-tenant situations. You’ve mentioned nursing home, that type of situation. What does elder law cover?

speaker-1 (07:52.59)
So really doesn’t, landlord tenant was really just what that legal services office was doing. So that doesn’t come under elder law in most cases. So it’s really a side of estate planning that has to do both with planning for incapacity in terms of being able to make decisions or having somebody in place as your surrogate, able to make decisions, whether through a power of attorney, healthcare proxy or other healthcare designation or a trust.

So a lot of it’s that, but a big piece of it is also planning for paying for care. if you’re going to need care, you’re either going to have it, in most cases, actually going to be provided by family members at no cost, but that can be a strain on them, or you may not have family members who can provide the care that’s needed. In which case, you’re either going to have to pay for it out of pocket, or you’re going to have to qualify for Medicaid to pay for it.

And the Medicaid rules are very complicated, which is bad for consumers, great for lawyers, because when things get complicated, you got to hire a lawyer with experience to help. And they’re not only complicated, but they change a lot. And they’re also different from state to state. So my firm, as we said, practice in Massachusetts. We have a very deep expertise on how Medicaid, which we call Mass Health here, works in Massachusetts.

But I couldn’t represent you across the border in Rhode Island or New Hampshire because the rules are going to be different. And so that makes it makes it more complicated as well. a big part of elder law is really planning for the potential of incapacity and when incapacity hits, planning to get the best care you can get and to preserve assets, whether it’s for yourself to pay for your care.

or for family members, often a spouse, sometimes for children as well.

speaker-0 (09:54.296)
I’m running across the term a lot nowadays with regards to ageism. I’ve had a few conversations with people working across the pond, working with the UN with regards to the Charter of Human Rights for aging and for seniors. Do you see a rise or do you see any coverage with regards to dealing with those type of issues?

speaker-1 (10:24.842)
We don’t so much. So most under the law attorneys don’t get involved with age discrimination. But a lot of what we’re doing is trying to allow people to maintain control and be protected. And that has a lot to do with having dignity. I mean, in our world, having money makes a huge difference on how you’re going to be treated.

And you want to secure it. You want to be protected from scams. You want to be protected from anyone else who may either try to take your money or just push you around in some ways. And the more we can help people maintain their autonomy and control over their funds, the better off they’re going to be.

speaker-0 (11:09.198)
Okay. Now you said that state by state, there any federal laws that cover the areas that you’re talking about? Since you

speaker-1 (11:16.91)
So, well, Medicare is federal and it’s almost everybody over 65 has Medicare as their primary health insurance. It does not pay for most long-term care. It will pay for some rehab or skilled nursing care after a hospitalization. So if you’ve been hospitalized, you had an acute event, you need.

some help afterwards. My mother’s an example, she’s 92, and she was hospitalized last year for about a week for a combination of a whole lot of things. It’s an infection and contention of heart failure and apparently some small strokes. But after weeks, she didn’t need hospital care anymore, but she was not able to come home. So she spent two weeks in a rehab hospital.

And that was all covered by Medicare. And then after that, we actually hired somebody to stay with her for a couple of weeks when she came home, which was not covered by Medicare. That was all paid for out of pocket, which was my mother who grew up in the depression was not so happy about that, about that expense, because she doesn’t like paying for anything. But if she needed further care, and she may in the future at home, that’s all going to be out of pocket.

And, and so you either pay, so Medicare won’t cover it. All Let me, let me take that back. It did also pay for, for several weeks after that for visiting nurses, and occupational therapists and a physical therapist to come to her house and kind of again, help her with a rehab post hospitalization. And, she didn’t really like it.

All these people coming to her house. So eventually she fired everybody. but, so Medicare covered that, but in terms of just, if she needed somebody to just be with her, to help her with getting dressed and getting out of bed or toileting or eating or getting food on the table, Medicare doesn’t pay for any of that. So that leaves, Medicaid and Medicaid is a joint federal state program.

speaker-0 (13:26.254)
Okay, so.

speaker-1 (13:36.398)
The federal government sets the parameters, but the program is actually run by the state. So the state has to qualify or meet the requirements of the federal government. If it does, then the federal government reimburses the state for its expenses about 50 cents on the dollar. It’s different from state to state and it’s different depending on kind of how expansive the state program is.

But about half the cost is paid by the States, about half by the federal government. And what’s going on in the, what’s anticipated in the United States is a part of President Trump’s one big, beautiful bill act. It plans about a trillion dollars in cuts over the coming 10 years, 10 years in the Medicaid program. And a lot of those cuts don’t directly affect long-term care.

they’re more, I mean, they’re, they’re much more stringent work requirements for people who are younger and are getting benefits. but the fact that there’s going to be a trillion dollars in cuts means that the States are going to kind of either, I mean, to some extent, they’re just gonna throw people off the rolls and save money that way. But other ways are going to have to, they’re going to have to find other ways to save money. And a lot of people are concerned that that’s going to affect

non-nursing home coverage. I said earlier, Medicaid has expanded in recent years to cover more home health, aid, and more assisted living. Those are discretionary programs. States don’t have to do that. Nursing home coverage, they do have to do. So they can’t cut that back. They can perhaps limit what they pay nursing homes, but someone in a nursing home who qualifies for Medicaid is going to get covered.

which is unlike home health or assisted living where they may just stop providing benefits or not expand benefits. people, sometimes people are forced into nursing homes. If they run out of money, they can’t pay for home health. They can’t pay for assisted living, but Medicaid will pay for further care if they’re in a nursing home. Well, that might be the only option, even though it’s not something they want.

speaker-0 (15:53.768)
So, okay, I’m going to this next question. My apologies for all American viewers, because my Canadian side is going to show up here. This sounds more administrative. Why would a lawyer need to get involved with all this?

speaker-1 (16:02.294)
Okay, that’s fine.

speaker-1 (16:11.234)
because it’s all really complicated. So in order to qualify, you have to be poor under the definition of Medicaid. And there are a lot of rules about that. You’re not allowed to give away assets in order to become poor, but there are exceptions to some of those rules. So in some cases you can give away assets. There are protections for spouses. So if one spouse needs care and the other doesn’t,

There are some protections, but there are ways you can do some planning to protect the spouse better. The home, usually for Medicaid, you have to spend down all of your liquid assets, but you can keep your home. people may want to protect their home to pass on to their children. And, or they may want to sell it, which can be problematic because you have a house that’s protected and you sell and you have cash that’s not protected.

And, and then if you, receive Medicaid coverage during your life and you still own your home, when you die, the state is supposed to recover its costs from your home. You know, there’s a state recovery and there are ways to protect against that. So, it’s, it’s, and then, then when we get to the home health and the assisted living coverage, it’s even more complicated. Cause they’re in Massachusetts, for instance, there’s like

half a dozen different Medicaid programs that may or may not cover home health or assisted living. And they each have different eligibility rules. And then they change all the time. For instance, Massachusetts just changed some of those rules.

speaker-0 (17:57.23)
Okay, now I understand why you get involved in all these things. So that goes towards the coming crisis that you write your, was it your podcast is all about?

speaker-1 (18:09.934)
Yeah, I a podcast and I have a sub stack. It’s a sub stack is at okay. Boomer.substack.com. And I’ve been writing actually something I was just working on this morning is trying to get AI to predict future long-term care expenses for the country. And they are going to.

I should pull that up, but they’re going to increase, I think something like six fold between, no, I might be exaggerating that, but they’re gonna increase at least three fold between now and 2050.

speaker-0 (18:52.366)
Okay, not for the individual, for the state, for the country, it’s as a whole.

speaker-1 (18:56.878)
Yeah. I mean, probably for both. maybe not for the individual because, um, part of the, I mean, the cost will increase with inflation. Right. So the cost will go up for individuals, but the number of people receiving care is going to increase about three times. Right. Because, um, you’re just much more likely to need care when you’re over 85. Okay. The oldest baby boomers are going to hit their 85th birthday in 2031, just five years from now.

And they’re followed by another 65 million. they might maybe not quite 65 million because not everybody’s going to make it to 85, but by tens of millions more, there are, as I said, there are 6.7 million people over 85 now in the United States and there’ll be over 18 million in 2050. So that’s almost triple. And basically because of that, there’s going to be a triple.

speaker-0 (19:49.582)
Yeah, interesting. Do you get into things like, one of the things I keep hearing about is for the elderly, for those people that are up there in age, they start getting taken advantage of by family members and that sort of thing. Does that show up in your practice as well?

speaker-1 (20:10.894)
Only to try to help people protect against it mostly. So the number of things we advise people to do, I mean, it’s easy to be a victim of a scam, whether at any age really, because the scammers are incredibly sophisticated. And they keep learning and they keep perfecting what they do.

so that can happen at any age, I think if you’re older, you’re more susceptible and you’re probably less, attuned to how technology works. and. older people have more money. mean, so, there, another reason they’re going to be targets, at least on, on average, somebody who’s in their sixties has more money than somebody who’s in their twenties. So, so the nest day that they’ve.

built up over decades is a target for scammers. So how do you protect against that? I one, just kind of advise everybody to be really careful and a lot of publicity about what scams are out there. But if you have somebody else who’s looking over your shoulder, that can help protect you from a scam or at least from losing too much money to it.

and I become a big proponent, the US, not sure how this would work. And if the same thing works this way in Canada, but a revocable trust, because a revocable trust sometimes called a living trust is a form of ownership of property where you can maintain control, but someone else can step in, pretty easily. if need be, it also avoids probate and can do a lot of, have a lot of other, benefits.

But if you have a revocable trust with a child or somebody else you trust as co-trustee, you can continue to, um, to manage the trust. But the other person has access to your accounts and can see if anything crazy is going on. then if you lose capacity, they can step in. Now that can happen with a power of attorney, but someone on a power of attorney doesn’t already have access.

speaker-1 (22:27.374)
And when it’s time to step in, they have to go in person to the bank or the investment company and show them the power of attorney and get on the accounts. And that takes time and people are busy. So if it’s already set up, that helps a lot. The other real benefit of a revocable trust is it gets people to get their financial act together really. Because a lot of people, again, over the decades,

You may have half a dozen or more accounts in different places, a bank, an investment firm, a retirement account here, another retirement account there. whoever’s going to step in, whether it’s while you’re alive or after you pass away, is going to have to go to every place and get onto the accounts and get control of them and deal with them. But if in order for the…

revocable trust to work, you have to fund it, which means you retitle your assets in the name of the trust. And typically people set up one account in the name of the trust and move everything else into it. So they’re not setting up several, not putting the trust on several different accounts, they’re consolidating everything in a single account. And that simplifies everybody’s life. Everything’s in one place. It makes it a lot easier to do planning.

because all the assets are in one place and you can see what’s there and make adjustments that need to be made. So it’s a huge added benefit to having a Revocable Trust. It gets people to consolidate their assets.

speaker-0 (24:06.83)
Are there things with these trusts that allow you to prevent, for example, taxes going to the state upon your death? That sort of thing.

speaker-1 (24:15.406)
To some extent, mean, in the United States, we pretty much got rid of estate taxes. I mean, unless you have over $15 million, there’s no federal state taxes. Some states, couple dozen states do have estate taxes. The thresholds range from the low of a million dollars in Oregon to I think right up to the 15 million, I think in Connecticut. most people don’t have to worry about estate taxes.

But if you are in a state that does have in Massachusetts, our threshold is 2 million, which most people are under that, but we also have an incredibly expensive housing market. So if you bought your house 30 years ago, it’s probably worth more than a million. And with that, with your other assets might put you over 2 million. There’s a relatively standard kind of

the state tax planning that husbands and wives do using what are called credit shelter trusts so that you can protect twice whatever the threshold is. So that standard planning in Massachusetts would mean you’d protect 4 million from any taxation. There’d only be taxes on the amount above 4 million. And most people don’t have more than 4 million. So with that planning, if you’re in the 2 million to 4 million dollar,

bracket in Massachusetts, it really makes sense to do that kind of credit shelter planning.

speaker-0 (25:50.798)
Is there an age that people should start dealing with all this or is it something more tied to end of life?

speaker-1 (26:02.638)
So typically people do an estate plan when they’re in the twenties or thirties and they start having children. So they want things in place. You’re late then. I probably, if you haven’t done your estate plan, but, then they look at it again around retirement. mid sixties.

speaker-0 (26:12.892)
I’m late then.

speaker-1 (26:24.958)
And that probably makes sense. mean, you’re less likely to need it when you’re younger, but you should have something in place just in case you have kids, just for them. And then later when you’re in your mid-60s, a lot has changed. Your kids hopefully are adults. You can change who you’re naming as your fiduciary. You’re probably retiring. You know where you’re at. You may or may not move from one state to another at that point.

So I think the mid sixties is really a good time to start this. And at that point, you do want to review it every once in while, because there are things you probably don’t want to do when you’re 65, such as tying up assets, say in an irrevocable trust, which people sometimes use for Medicaid planning. But you may want to do that when you’re 75 or 80. and, you’re further down the road, you know, whether or not you’re going to.

Uh, you have any health issues at that point. Um, so I think, um, I think I’d say 65 review your plan, update it. 75 take another look. And the other thing I like about 75 as a really important date, I think it’s a really important date to reassess where you’re living. So everybody wants to age in place, but there are a lot of reasons you probably shouldn’t age in place.

So maintaining a house can get more and more difficult. It can cost a lot of money. It may not be the best place to live if you, if you can no longer go up and down stairs, it can become dangerous in some cases. And you may not be living in the right place. If you started to need assistance in terms of where your kids are, assuming you have kids who can help you out. if, if you’re in Vancouver.

And I’m your son and I’m in Boston and you need help. Um, it’s going to be a little hard for me to provide it. And that’s going to be mean cross country plane trips. Um, so it may make sense to say at 75 to relocate to wherever your children is or wherever the child is who might be most able to provide assistance. Cause at 75, you’re still able to make decisions. You’re still able to make new friends, hopefully, uh, to accommodate, to move into a new community, get established.

speaker-1 (28:47.602)
and deal with that transition, which at 85 you might not be able to do. Then it may be too late and it could be all rushed and you could be kind of forced to move into a place you don’t want to move to. So I think 75 is a really good time to take stock and think about what your long range plans are going to be.

speaker-0 (29:08.622)
interesting. My father is 94. He’s still alive. He’s actually still living in the house that I grew up in. He built it in 65. He built that just as an aside for $11,000 back in 1965. Here in Vancouver, that thing is now worth 2 million.

speaker-1 (29:29.656)
Good investment.

speaker-0 (29:30.806)
Yeah, but the thing is, that’s what I used to tell people for where I am. If I was to sell it, I’d still have to buy another place in the same price range. So it’s not like I’m getting the cash out at that time. But he is.

speaker-1 (29:44.545)
Right, right.

speaker-0 (29:49.366)
When I moved here, it was a 45 minute drive to get to him. It’s now an hour and a half because Vancouver is expanded and grown. the entire concept of moving him closer or us closer to him, because it’s hard to get to him now.

speaker-1 (29:57.966)
for traffic.

speaker-1 (30:08.504)
Yeah, that’s three hours just driving.

speaker-0 (30:10.702)
Exactly. It’s not the greatest thing for, for example, and he can’t drive. Well, he can drive, he doesn’t drive for that distance because of physically things like his bladder can’t hold that. Right. that sort of thing. So the entire concept of moving makes a whole lot of sense. You mentioned decision making capability changing.

speaker-1 (30:24.97)
yeah. Yeah. So…

speaker-0 (30:40.682)
One thing I’m always checking with my father is, is he still making sound decisions? Is he thinking for himself? Whereas my brother’s always trying to push him in a certain direction. Is there a mechanism that’s used for testing to make sure that somebody is actually making decisions appropriately? You may not like the decisions, but they’re still making appropriate decisions for them.

speaker-1 (30:51.469)
Mm.

speaker-1 (31:04.717)
Right, right.

speaker-1 (31:09.804)
Yeah, that’s a, it’s a very big gray area. so you start with the idea that everybody, or the presumption is everybody can make decisions for themselves. That’s, that’s how we live. And so you, so it’s a relatively high burr hurdle to get over that. and people are allowed to make bad decisions for themselves. So, so they can do that. So I think in most cases.

until it’s clear that people are demented and can’t make decisions for themselves that need to defer to them. I mean, the problem is when people get older, when they make bad decisions, it may not be a bad decision just for them. So my mother, my 92 year old mother is living on her own in an apartment. actually in a kind of community where she gets some, she’s not totally alone there.

But we’ve been talking to her about moving to assisted living and she doesn’t necessarily want to do that. She hasn’t totally rejected the idea. She’s on some waiting lists. But that affects us because we know she’s not totally safe. She needs attention. She doesn’t have people necessarily visiting her every day, which means that we’re paying a lot more attention and visiting a lot more.

And in a lot of ways, that’s what families are supposed to do. But it does mean a little more burden on us. It’s a decision she’s making that she doesn’t want to move and she’d rather be in her own place. But it’s not a decision that only affects her.

speaker-0 (32:55.342)
True, So you had, you mentioned dementia. A lot of what you were talking, I was, my first mindset was they’re not able to get out of bed. They’re not able to take, physically control themselves. But when you started talking about dementia, you got me going with the mind. Yeah. Are these things also areas that aren’t really being taken into consideration?

speaker-1 (33:23.278)
I think neither of them is. People are aware that you get older, you’re a lot more likely to start forgetting things and ultimately lead to cognitive decline. It could be minor or again it could be major and it’d be called dementia. Dementia in most cases, the cognitive decline usually is gradual unless you have a stroke or something like that.

The physical decline could be more abrupt because you again could have a stroke that affects you physically. but you could also fall and break, break your hip. so again, that might be gradual too, or it may be abrupt. It, and what one day you’re walking and maybe not still playing tennis, but the next day you’re pickle ball, pickle ball, right? The next day you’re in a wheelchair. So, so the,

but either could happen. Sometimes you see older couples, they’re both kind of, propping each other up. One has a cognitive decline, the other has physical decline, but together they’re kind of one whole person and it works until it doesn’t work. it, it works until the one, who’s, has cognitive decline also has a physical disability or vice versa, or the person who, who.

cognitively intact needs to go to the hospital for extended periods and no one’s there to take care of the one who’s cognitively impaired. So things happen different ways for different people. It’s not all predictable.

speaker-0 (35:05.186)
You just mentioned couples and I was thinking of the individual, but I keep hearing about stories of couples that are put into homes, but they’re not in the same room. They’re not side by side. Is that something that is being dealt with as well?

speaker-1 (35:18.23)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (35:24.0)
I think it’s, well, I think it’s more likely, what we see more often is that one member of the couple has to go to a facility because they need care and the other doesn’t. So when they both need to, I mean, there’s some continuing care retirement communities or assist living facilities that have different kinds of care units. you may be.

One member might be living in an independent living room in their own apartment, and the other may be in a memory unit at the same facility, which can work pretty well because at least they can visit. But a lot depends on the facility, what they allow and what’s available in terms of living together or being separated.

speaker-0 (36:14.486)
No, this just got me thinking. My wife and I have been together for 40 years. So it’ll be our 41st anniversary in June. And I wouldn’t feel whole if I wasn’t right next to her type thing. You know what I mean?

speaker-1 (36:33.014)
Yeah, I think there are lot of couples like that. Yeah. That can be very hard.

speaker-0 (36:38.762)
It takes me back to thinking about COVID and how people were isolated from each other from that point of view as well.

speaker-1 (36:45.716)
tremendously. mean, of course, a lot of older people died because they were in facilities. They got infected and there wasn’t the protection. weren’t ready for it. And they were more susceptible to getting infected and passing away from it. Fortunately, that’s behind us. yeah, the measures, a lot of facilities took somewhat draconian measures to protect people, to isolate people physically, which also

isolated them emotionally and psychologically. And that was pretty bad. And how you balance the two, protecting people from the physical risk of getting COVID.

And, uh, without too much harm, kind of too much psychological and social harm. And that’s often the case with, again, as people age and we talked about whether they make good or bad decisions. Um, how much do you protect people from making bad decisions and how much do you just allow them to do that? Cause that’s, um, kind of the person autonomy and that’s a balance that’s hard to, to, there’s no definite rule and people fall different places.

speaker-0 (38:02.092)
Yeah, we could get into an entire conversation about COVID and decisions, but. OK, so with your blog and with all the work that you’ve gone through, you’ve probably had a lot of common questions come up. Well, have some of those been.

speaker-1 (38:21.154)
Well, I think the biggest question we see in our practice is really how can we protect our assets? And as we’ve discussed that can take many flavors. can be protecting them from potential scam, protecting them from wasting money, protecting them from long-term care costs. And often the same steps can help with a lot of these goals. also protect, you mentioned taxes.

It’s less, it’s less an issue than it used to be. Um, but yeah, that’s also, also a goal. That’s probably the biggest, um, question. We also, um, in terms of a state plan, we talked to people a lot about how they can protect what they leave their children. So when you pass away, you can just say, everything goes to my kids outright. Yeah. It’s theirs. It’s their problem. They deal with it, but you can also leave assets. Again, this is, I don’t know about Canada.

You know what?

speaker-0 (39:21.966)
Let’s put it this way. I’m dealing with general rules of thumb. What I have found is countries have very similar thought processes. How they deal with it from a legal point of view is different, but they’re still thinking about very similar things.

speaker-1 (39:40.886)
Yeah. So, so I talked about how I become come to really favor revocable trust as part of incapacity planning. but if you have a trust continue for the benefit of your children and grandchildren, it provides potentially lot of other benefits. So in that kind of trust in the U S is protected from their creditors is protected in the event of divorce.

It keeps whatever you leave in the family in case the child passes away. makes sure goes to the grandchildren. So a lot of things you can do with a continuing trust that you wouldn’t be able to do without a trust. so in terms of protecting assets, that’s often a solution for a lot of clients is to really start thinking about taking care of future generations.

speaker-0 (40:38.444)
Next week I’m meeting with, I’ll use the term ombudsman. There’s an ombudsman here in BC that’s an advocate for seniors within the BC government for any of the legislation they’re dealing with. And what I’m trying to keep in mind are some various different policy areas that may be lacking. From your point of view, from the legal point of view, what areas are weak right now?

speaker-1 (41:05.474)
Well, I think, well in the United States, I think there’s less enforcement of the, of the quality control rules for nursing homes and assisted living that I believe there is in Canada. actually had a guest on my podcast who did some, was from Massachusetts, but for some reason was part of a, some board that reviewed facilities in Canada.

And he said the candidate was much better than the U S or Lisa Massachusetts in terms of enforcing the rules for nursing homes in terms of quality of care. they’re much, and they were much more quicker, much more, yeah, I guess they were quicker, to take the facilities under receivership if, if a bad performing facility and, and, even shut it down if necessary. And because of that.

the facilities actually didn’t get taken under receivership in most cases and provided a higher quality of care. And in the US, I think the, at least what he was telling me is that the regulators are much more reluctant to take that step or don’t have the ability to take that step so easily. And as a result, problems just often continue and fester.

And they’re often afraid to shut facilities down because there’s a shortage of beds. So I know Massachusetts recently passed some new rules, which I think makes it easier for the state to step in than it used to be. And we’ll see what happens here. So from that point of view, you probably have it better in Canada than we do in the U.S. And we need to emulate you.

speaker-0 (42:55.566)
So just to clarify, let me give my perspective. I know this is meant for you to talk, just to address that. One thing I’ve noticed between the difference between Canada and the US is in general, Canada has more of a social net than the US does. The US is very market driven.

And that’s fine. That’s the way the US wants to do things. Canada, what you’re talking to is something that’s tied to our health care system, which because of everything you’ve been talking about with Medicare and Medicaid, it fits into our health care system. So as a result, there’s that

government oversight that is in there and it’s part and parcel of where we focus things.

speaker-1 (43:51.534)
Yeah, no, I think in a lot of ways Canada has a better system. I know you spend a lot less on health care than we do here. I believe you have universal coverage, which we don’t have. it’s probably less complicated. mean, we have private health insurance, employer-provided health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, high deductible plans.

speaker-1 (44:19.178)
accounts where you can put pre-tax dollars in to pay for healthcare and fund it and then somehow get the money from that account to pay for your healthcare. It’s just incredibly complicated and a single payer system would make it a lot simpler.

speaker-0 (44:33.88)
Yeah.

Okay, we’re getting towards the end of the interview. And I always ask this one question of all my guests. If you were to give one piece of advice, what would it be?

speaker-1 (44:48.738)
Who am I giving it to?

speaker-0 (44:50.89)
Anybody. Just keep in mind that you have an audience here that’s focused on people from 55 up to end of life. So you have a wide range here.

speaker-1 (45:01.688)
So I think I was thinking whether I give it to individuals or to policymakers, but if I’m giving it to individuals and their families, I think it’s really to take stock at 75. Really sit down and not just with yourself, sit down with your whole family. So if you have kids, spouse, anyone else who may be involved in whatever happens to you in later years, have a conversation about what you want, what they want.

what would be the best plan and then how to implement it. So that would be what I would say to individuals. When I was talking to policymakers, least in the United States, we need to start planning for the coming elder care crisis. And it needs to be multi-sector planning, meaning that you need to have people from all walks of life or all parts of the system

Involves that’s hospitals, that’s nursing homes, living facilities, home health providers, nonprofits, for-profits, insurance companies. They all need to get in one room and figure out what makes the most sense. And it is probably should be done on a state or even more local level, not a federal level. need more statewide multi-sector planning to figure out how you’re going to provide the best care.

at the lowest cost because it’s going to be very expensive and some kinds of care are cheaper than others. I mean, there’s kind of a new move towards more supported housing so everyone has their own apartment but there’s some services there which can be a lot cheaper to provide care or assistance in that kind of setting than

Everyone’s scattered around the suburbs in different houses and you have to drive around to provide to check in on them. So things like that, if there’s more development of that kind of housing, that’s going to both provide better care for people and reduce costs.

speaker-0 (47:12.674)
think you’re going to see a real societal shift because you’re not the first person to talk about housing. there’s housing, there’s technology, there’s access to services. All of these things, I think, need to start being looked at by various different civic planners, urban planners, that sort of thing.

speaker-1 (47:35.522)
Yeah. So I think housing is key. I’m, I’m somewhat some, something of a skeptic about, technology helping that much.

speaker-0 (47:45.132)
When I technology, I’m saying things like, right now, stuff that’s being sold to the elderly are being designed and developed by people in their late 20s, early 30s. And their ability to comprehend what somebody goes through at that age is very difficult. Yes, they may have focus groups, but inherently, they don’t understand that.

speaker-1 (48:12.546)
Yep.

speaker-0 (48:12.994)
There are changes that need to occur with regards to technology. I’m not saying technology supporting because there is some need for things like I fall and I can’t get up. Right. think. Yeah. But the entire concept of changing the way, hell, my phone, I got my dad an iPhone when he was.

I’ll say mid 80s. I wanted, he had a line line at the time. He did not have a cell phone, but I wanted him to have something on him so that if he did fall, he could make a phone call saying, I need help.

speaker-1 (48:52.236)
Yeah, right.

speaker-0 (48:54.232)
He couldn’t use it. He could not use a smartphone because those things are too small. It’s complicated. It’s not something appropriate for him. Now I found other technologies that fit into that, but that’s what I mean from the technology point of view. So you talk about housing, you talk about technology, you talk about services. What you’re doing, these services have to be thought about. All of these things have to be.

speaker-1 (49:01.326)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (49:21.194)
especially considering the age of the population is going older, there’s got to be a change to these things.

speaker-1 (49:29.014)
Yeah, no, has to be, got it, we got it, plan for that.

speaker-0 (49:32.962)
Anyway, Harry, I really appreciate it. I think it’s been a very informative conversation. For everybody that’s listening, I will put all the contact information with regards to Harry down in the description of this video. Harry, you have a number of things you’ve sent me, including your sub stack and your podcast and your law firm.

People take a look at that and reach out to Harry if you were looking for some additional information.

speaker-1 (50:04.32)
Also, don’t forget. very much, Neil.

speaker-0 (50:06.324)
Enjoy. Thank you very much.