What Happens If a Sibling Took Money From Mom Before Her Medicaid Application?
Short answer: The transfers show up. Long-term-care Medicaid requires roughly 60 months — five years — of bank statements, and unexplained withdrawals inside that window trigger a penalty period, a referral for financial exploitation, or both. Leaving them off the application is a federal offense, and the person who signs as power of attorney is the one whose signature is on it. "Say nothing" was never actually one of the options. This is general information, not legal advice — an elder-law attorney is the first call.
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Auto-generated transcript, lightly cleaned. It may still contain errors.
I want to take it to the Black Box. Let's end on the Black Box. Listen, I'm still getting people sending messages about the last Black Box, and they're saying that I should reach out to old girl to see what the results are. I don't know if I feel comfortable doing that, but we'll see where that leads. I just want to wait a few months. We'll see.
All right, up next, Black Box.
"Form MA-21, page four, question nine. That is where this ends up. And I'd rather start there than build up to it, because I've had 11 days to build up to it and it hasn't helped.
My mother is 81. She's in a facility outside of Savannah that costs $6,200 a month. I am the power of attorney. I have been power of attorney for six years, and in six years I have not once looked at the accounts properly, because my brother handles the money — my brother has handled the money since our father died — and questioning that would have been the same as saying it out loud.
Eleven days ago, I looked properly. Forty-one thousand dollars is gone. It went out in amounts small enough that nobody blinks. Nine hundred here, twelve hundred there, over four years. It is not a mystery and I'm not going to insult anybody by pretending it is. He has a gambling problem that this family has agreed to call a rough patch since 2019.
Now here is why I can't sit with it, and why I'm writing this week instead of next year. Her money ran out. To keep her bed, we have to apply for state assistance, and the application requires 60 months of bank statements. Five years. Every one of those transfers is in that window.
So the choice everybody thinks I have — say something or say nothing — is not the choice I have. If I say nothing, the state finds it anyway, and then it isn't my brother taking from my mother. It's fraud, and it's discovered, and it's discovered while I'm the one who signed as power of attorney. Payment is due on September 1st. The application has to be in before that.
I have three roads, and I have walked all three of them in my head every night for 11 days.
One: I file it clean. Every transfer is in there. The state refers it. And my brother — a 46-year-old Black man with two children and a record from when he was 19 that will make every part of this worse — goes into a system I have spent my whole life telling my sons to stay out of. I will have to put him there. Not the state. Me. My signature is on the form.
Second: I file it dirty. I leave things out. I explain the gaps. I take my chances. That is a federal offense, and I would be committing it at 62 years old with my own signature. And if it goes wrong, my mother loses the bed and I lose everything I have. My sons watch that happen.
Or: I don't file. We move her home. I have a spare room and a job I'd have to leave. And my wife, who has been better about this than I deserve, becomes a nurse at 58 for a woman who does not know her name most days.
I don't want anybody's sympathy, and I'm not asking whether my brother is wrong. He's wrong. That part is not interesting and is not what's keeping me up. What's keeping me up is that every road here ends with me choosing which person in my family gets destroyed, and I have to pick by September 1st.
So don't tell me what you'd do. I've heard what people would do. Do this instead, please. Rank them one, two, three. Clean, dirty, or bring her home — in the order you could actually live with, not in the order that sounds best on a podcast. Say the numbers out loud before you say why. Then, and only then, tell me why. And if any one of you ranks 'protect my brother from that system' above 'don't commit fraud,' I need you to say that with your whole chest, because that is the answer my mother's church would give me, and it's the answer I keep reaching for at four in the morning, and I need to hear a grown man say it in the daylight so I can find out whether it survives.
Marcus W. from Savannah, Georgia. And under my name I'm putting hers, because she's the one this is actually about. Ruth, 81."
Shout out to Ruth, man. Big shout out to Ruth.
So let me run through it one more time. We've got: file it clean, file it dirty, or don't file. If he files it clean, his brother's getting sent up the river. If he files it dirty, he's the one getting sent up the river. And if he doesn't file, mama's coming home to stay with him.
But is it safe to presume that filing clean will allow his mother to keep her bed? Not necessarily — because what's going to happen is, there's the potential they find the fraud, and if they find that money was abused by the brother, they're going to send the brother up the river. That's part of his concern.
So for me, I'm going one, three, two. I'm going clean, then bring her home, then filing dirty.
Explain why you've chosen that order. Okay. I'll start at the top. I'll start with one, filing clean. I'm filing clean because, A, my brother will be in a place where he's no longer gambling and causing harm — not only to me, his kids and everybody else. And the other part of it is, there is a possibility that once they file clean, they can say mom loses the bed. But they also can say, we see this conviction of him because of what he was doing and his involvement, and you guys weren't the ones committing fraud in this — and she can keep her bed. And then it alleviates a huge... because again, I'm sure they've had conversations with him about the gambling. I'm sure they've already tried other interventions. And as someone who holds strong abolitionist, anti-prison politics, in this scenario number one is the one that alleviates, or has the potential of, the least amount of harm.
Even though you know that it could potentially send this 40-something-year-old man to jail, away from his children and family. Yes.
And number three — the third one is bring mom home. I would say that one, because again, mom is at home, she's able to be provided for. But the reason why I didn't put three at number one is because of the sacrifices and the weight on people who have nothing to do with this, particularly the wife — who is, if not retired, damn near close to retirement age — to take on the responsibility of caring for someone at that rate of intensity. And part of the number-one reasoning is that mom needs to be in specialized care. We need somebody who can work with somebody who has that type of debilitating illness.
And number two — number two is way down the list for me, because that blows everything up. If that goes wrong, bro, everything. Sixty-plus years old. Can you imagine having to go to jail? And what happens to mom in scenario two if everything goes left? There's nobody to care for mom.
I'm going to agree with El. I was initially going to put number three at number one, and only because of my personal experience — you know, when my mom got ill with that type of issue, we brought her in, we were taking care of her in the home. And I know the sacrifice that it takes. I know the disability that happens when you have to take care of a loved one in that capacity. And you think that it's just you, but ultimately in the process you see the impact that doing that has on the entire family. So because I've been there, that was one of the reasons why I was going to choose it. But like El said, if your brother's got this issue, bro, he might just have to eat it. I'm sorry, bro — for your sake, because you've got a family that you need to take care of, talk less of your mom. So even if your brother goes away and you ultimately still need to bring mom home, at least there's somebody responsible who can bring mom home, because your brother's already shown that he's not responsible. He can't be trusted. So God forbid you do it dirty and you go to jail — now mom is left with the irresponsible one, and we don't know what's going to end up happening to mom.
And gambling is not something people can just turn off. It's not like drugs and alcohol, my guy.
Yeah, I was pretty much going to go with one, three, two as well. Mainly because there's a chance that filing clean, with the full knowledge that transgressions took place, the right kind of family-court situation would take into account the actual responsible parties. And filing clean also probably, in a way, solves some problems for your brother's family — who have probably been dealing with their father's problem a lot worse. Just as much as he was defrauding his own mother financially, they were suffering too, and probably already in a tight spot. And removing the negative influence — granted, it can be traumatic, but necessary.
Let's flip back. I want to ask you guys a question then. We've all given the same answer essentially, with slight variations of why. The question I've got for you guys: how do you deal with the quote-unquote guilt of sending your brother to prison after this blows up? How do you look at your family afterwards?
I did not send my brother to prison. I had to make an incredibly challenging, difficult choice that had ramifications and destruction no matter what. I chose the one that had the least amount of blood on my hands. And my brother — now I'm going to help. I've probably already been raising his two sons and participating. I didn't make the decision. What guilt?
To be honest, if you're his brother, deep down you knew this day was going to come. You knew it was coming. You tried. You tried even while your mom's on her deathbed. You tried. But then he turns around and starts taking money. He keeps sneaking money out.
And willingly — underneath the guise of his addiction, right, to be fair. He willingly took money out, knowing. And he's going to give you all the addiction jargon, he's going to try to justify it and do all the things that get you to feel bad. And again, it's not about love, it's not about punishment. You are left in a situation where literally, you have no other choice. You can't do it dirty. Doing it dirty compounds this situation in a way that — that's a 62-year-old with an 81-year-old mom.
There's one thing about one of those options that is bothering me. The option to not file. What do you mean, not file? Maybe he's thinking they have to process the paperwork yearly or whatever the time period is, and if they don't, it's no skin off the government's back, because they're not going to funnel any money to him. So it's like — okay, well, we know that we're at risk of not getting money. We know that if I file, somebody's at risk, either me doing it clean and sending my brother away, or me doing it dirty and sending my own self away. So I'm not going to file the request. Oh — this is a filing for assistance. Yes, exactly. It's not filing taxes.
But if you don't file, everyone but your brother is going to feel it.
You're missing that your niece and nephew will be grateful. You don't know your brother — because their college funds are gone. Those two kids are working. Bro, they're working. They're paying the bills. I'm not saying they're going to be out on the side of the street cheering with pom-poms. But they're going to be a little bit relieved that they can have a normal life. Not worrying about the car being repossessed. Because if you get to the point where you begin to steal that money, bro, that's the top of the mountain. You're already asking neighbors for groceries.
I dig it, and I'm not saying that you guys aren't correct. I'm just trying to take in the full totality of it. You are sending a 40-something-year-old man to prison. That is a potential body — regardless of how faulty it is, a potential body — to bring you income. So now you've eliminated completely one avenue of income.
All right, man. Up next, what we wanted to give you guys, of course, is our Black List. We want to give you the things that we're listening to, reading and/or watching that we think you guys would be interested in.
The letter: $41,000, sixty months, and a September 1 deadline
Marcus W. from Savannah wrote in, and he opened by refusing to make it a mystery. His mother, Ruth, is 81 and in a facility outside Savannah that costs $6,200 a month. He has been her power of attorney for six years, and for six years he did not look at the accounts properly, because his brother has handled the money since their father died, and questioning that would have meant saying it out loud.
Eleven days ago he looked. Forty-one thousand dollars is gone — $900 here, $1,200 there, spread across four years in amounts small enough that nobody blinks. His brother has a gambling problem the family has been calling a rough patch since 2019.
Her money has run out. To keep the bed, they have to apply for state assistance, and the application requires sixty months of bank statements. Every one of those transfers sits inside that window. Payment is due September 1.
Why "say nothing" was never on the table
This is the part that reframes the whole letter, and Marcus got there before the table did. The choice everybody assumes he has — say something or say nothing — is not the choice he has.
If he says nothing, the state finds it anyway. And at that point it stops being "my brother took money from my mother" and becomes fraud, discovered, on an application signed by the power of attorney. The silence does not protect his brother. It just adds his own name to the file.
What the five-year lookback actually asks for
Worth being precise here, because this catches families every year. Long-term-care Medicaid uses a 60-month look-back in Georgia — and in every state except California. The county office asks for five full years of statements covering that window, and a single missing month can stall the application for weeks.
Caseworkers do not just skim. They look for transfers and withdrawals, and they ask the authorized representative to explain the large ones. Money that left the account without fair value coming back is treated as a disqualifying transfer, which produces a penalty period — a stretch of time the applicant is ineligible, calculated from the amount. Separately, a power of attorney owes a fiduciary duty to the person they represent, and funds moved for the agent's own benefit can be referred as financial exploitation of an elder.
So the transfers create exposure on two tracks at once: eligibility, and conduct. Which is exactly why Marcus asked the table to rank his roads instead of telling him what they would do.
Where the table landed: clean, home, dirty
He gave three: file it clean, file it dirty, or don't file and bring her home. He asked for the numbers out loud before any reasoning.
All three men landed on 1, 3, 2. Clean first. Bring her home second. File it dirty dead last.
Big El went first and named the uncomfortable part of his own position: he holds abolitionist, anti-prison politics, and in this scenario filing clean is still the option with the least total harm. It stops the money from moving. It puts the facts in front of the people who decide, which is the only version where the caseworker can see that Marcus was not the one taking. And it is the only road that keeps specialized care on the table for a woman who, most days, does not know her name.
He put "bring her home" third rather than second for a specific reason, and it is the one families underweight: the cost lands on someone who did not choose any of this. Marcus's wife is 58. Home care is not a spare room and good intentions — it is a job, and it would be her job.
Krush had actually lived the third option and still ranked it below clean. He brought his own mother home during an illness like this, and his point was that you think the weight is on you, and then you watch what it does to the whole household. "File it dirty" was last for everyone, and unanimously: it is a federal offense, and if it goes wrong at 62 years old, mom loses the bed anyway and the only person left standing is the brother who cannot be trusted with the money.
The guilt question — how do you look at your family after?
Big O pushed the harder question, which is the one Marcus is actually going to live with: how do you carry the guilt of your brother going away?
Big El's answer was the line of the segment. I did not send my brother to prison. I made an incredibly difficult choice, and every version of it had destruction in it. I chose the one with the least blood on my hands. And then he kept going, which matters — the same person who files clean is the person who shows up for those two kids, who are already working to keep the lights on, whose college money is gone.
Krush's version was gentler and just as direct: if you are his brother, you knew this day was coming. You tried. That is not nothing, and it is also not a reason to be the one who goes down with him.
One thing worth saying plainly, because the show did: gambling is an addiction with a real clinical profile, and it does not switch off by decision. Naming it does not excuse the withdrawals — the money was still taken from an 81-year-old woman — but "he should have just stopped" is not how it works. If this is your family, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-GAMBLER, and it is free and confidential.
What this costs, and who keeps paying it
The thing underneath the letter is not one bad brother. It is that a family with $6,200 a month in care costs and no cushion has no margin for one person's crisis. That is the same arithmetic we worked through in why everything is so expensive for Black families, and it is the same silence problem that ran through the letter about a family history nobody wanted to say out loud. Four years of $900 withdrawals is what "we'll deal with it later" costs when there is nothing to absorb it.
The practical takeaway for anybody who is a power of attorney: look at the statements now, not at the deadline. Six years of not looking is what turned a family problem into a legal one.
Watch the full episode
The full Black Box segment has the letter read in full and all three men ranking it out loud before they explain, exactly as Marcus asked. Watch it, then tell us where you land. If this is the kind of conversation you want more of, join the family.
Informed. Intelligent. In The Black.
