“2025 SSI, Spousal Impoverishment, and Medicare Savings Program Resource Standards,” Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS)”

“2025 SSI, Spousal Impoverishment, and Medicare Savings Program Resource Standards,” Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS)

Quote:

“This CMCS Informational Bulletin provides an update on the 2025 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Spousal Impoverishment Standards as well as the 2025 resource standards for the Medicare Savings Program (MSP) groups.”

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

Here are the highlights:

  • The Medicaid home equity limit for 2025 is $731,000 in most states and $1,097,000 in nine others. There was no limit on home equity until the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The DRA ‘05 established a home equity limit of $500,000, but allowed states to go as high as $750,000. Both limits increase annually with inflation. The median home equity of U.S. seniors is only $250,000, so the Medicaid limit is largely ineffectual in blocking eligibility for house-rich recipients who could have used their home equity to purchase LTC in the private market.
  • The Monthly Maintenance Needs Allowance is the amount of the institutionalized spouse’s income that can be transferred to the community spouse. It ranges in 2025 from a minimum of $2,555 to a maximum of $3,948.
  • The Community Spouse Resource Allowance is one-half of the couple’s joint assets not to exceed $157,920.00 but it guarantees a minimum allowance of $31,584. The CSRA is the amount the community spouse can retain of the couple’s joint assets without disqualifying the institutionalized spouse.

The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 created these “spousal impoverishment” protections to prevent community spouses of institutionalized Medicaid recipients from destitution due to the Medicaid income and asset limits previously in effect. Although well-intentioned, these spousal impoverishment protections had the effect of removing another reason for families to take the cost of LTC seriously and to plan, save, invest or insure for the risk.