Special Needs Street

07/31/2026

I just LOVE Tanner (and his whole family). Such an incredible young man!

07/22/2026

If you live in Louisiana and you have a special needs grandchild (no matter what state they reside), you need to address this in your Last Will and/or Living Trust! Why? Because in Louisiana, if that special needs grandchild's parent (your child) predeceases you, then your special needs grandchild becomes YOUR FORCED HEIR. This means that the state of Louisiana literally "FORCES" you to leave that grandchild an inheritance (maybe as high as 25% of your estate). Yes, this applies even if you are married!

This MUST be addressed in your Will/Trust to assure this inheritance is safely protected by a Special Needs Trust so your special needs grandchild will not lose any government means-tested benefits (like any of the Medicaid Waiver programs).

Hopefully, your child has addressed this in their own estate plan and you can likely direct this inheritance (legally called the legitime) to the special needs trust created under your child's estate plan. If so, this could be done under your present Will/Trust more simply (via a codicil or amendment) as opposed to you having to create your own special needs trust from scratch (which is much more costly).

A "non-dabbling" estate planning attorney should have already asked these questions upon the creation of your estate plan (and many living trusts, including mine, have these provisions already "built-in") but for many folks, grandchildren may not have even been born yet at the creation of the estate plan.

This is why we always recommend that you review your entire estate plan at every one of life's big changes and at least once every three years or so.

07/21/2026

Don't believe "dabbling" lawyers, especially those rendering MEDICAID advice...

You cannot simply RENOUNCE (sign over to someone) an interest in a succession (inheritance) "away" and expect that MEDICAID won't care. Trust me...they will care! Medicaid looks at this just like you received the cash value and just gave it away. We hear people say all the time that the lawyer doing the Succession just told us to do this! Noooooo!

06/15/2026

TRUMP ACCOUNTS - revisited. I stand corrected, and gladly so!

While I posted a week or so ago (I have since removed that post) regarding my opinion on whether special needs parents should take up the government on their $1,000 one-time payment ("contribution") for American children born on 01/01/2025-12/31/2028 to establish a "Trump Account".

So, why did I change my mind? Last week I reasearched and learned that effective on 05/27/2026 (so I was a week too late!) the Social Security Administration put out an Emergency Message to address the balances in Trump Accounts (TA) when they belong to someone with special needs who is receiving government means-tested benefits.

It seems at age 17 you will be able to transfer any TA balance to the special needs person's ABLE account! Just another reason why I believe that ABLE accounts are just the bomb diggity and "should" be (it's not!) a mandatory requirement for every special needs person.

I have a link to the SSA "Emergency Message" in the comments.

06/01/2026

ABLE accounts - here comes ACCURATE information!!
Several people have recently told me 4 things that some "dabblers" are getting all wrong:

1) you CANNOT contribute MORE than the annual allowable amount to an ABLE account (yes, the first $100,000 is NOT a countable asset for Medicaid, but that doesn't mean you can fund the whole $100k in one fell swoop!);

2) the maximum annual amount you can contribute for 2026 to an ABLE account is $20,000 (unless the beneficiary is employed then there are some rules that allow more), which is actually $1,000 more than the annual gift amount (which is $19,000 this year);

3) each disabled person may only have ONE (1) ABLE account; and

4) for 2026, the age that an ABLE account beneficiary actually became disabled has been raised 20 more years, so as long as the disability began BEFORE age 46 (prior to 01/01/26, it was only age 26), an ABLE account may be opened - THIS.IS.HUGE!

As usual, the best information out there is from the ABLE National Resource Center, link in the comments.

05/28/2026

01/05/2026

ABLE (Achieving a Better Life Experience) account disability age was raised to 46 (technically to the full age of 45)! Effective January 1, 2026, if you have a loved one who became disabled PRIOR TO AGE 46, they (or you on their behalf) can now open an ABLE account! Prior to this change the disability had to occur before age 26, so this is huge for those whose disabilities began in that age 26-45 span. It doesn't matter how old you are now, as long as your disability began prior to age 46.

In my opinion, anyone with a disability who is already on MEDICAID, or who likely will be after the age of majority, should have an ABLE account in their name.

If there is already a Special Needs Trust (SNT) in place for the disabled individual, they should have an ABLE account IN ADDITION to their Special Needs Trust and the ABLE account may be funded with assets from the SNT.

There can only be ONE (1) ABLE account per person and I urge you to do your research regarding what state's ABLE you wish to utilize. As much as I love LOUISIANA's 529 START program, I still am not a fan of our 529(A) (ABLE) program so I urge you to investigate other states that offer debit cards and have much lower minimum withdrawal amounts and greater limits on the number of monthly transactions. My two favorites remain VIRGINIA-ABLE now and OREGON -ABLE for ALL. (See compare tool in comments.)

There is also a great 20-minute video I posted in the comments on ABLE account basics.