When a couple comes to my office, and they're in the situation where one of them is ill or possibly has a degenerative type of disease and is going to become more ill, then we're very worried if the healthy spouse pre-deceases the other one. Because if the healthy spouse pre-deceases, then very typically all of the joint assets will be inherited by the spouse that is ill. And if the spouse becomes so ill, for example, that they need to go to a nursing home, then those assets are gonna be used to pay for a nursing, and many times there really isn't enough assets to be able to afford a nursing home, and we need to help this family, potentially, plan for one of the spouses to qualify for medicaid.

                    

So in this situation, the healthy spouse, we will often write into their last will and testament a special needs trust for the benefit of their spouse. So if in fact they did pre-decease leaving the assets to the less healthy spouse, then those assets will be protected by the special needs trust, and it will not be counted as an asset of the surviving spouse, so that the surviving spouse could potentially qualify for Medicaid if they needed to.