The home has a separate equity rule
For SSI-related Medicaid, the homestead equity limit is $752,000 in 2026 for home health, MI Choice/PACE HCBS, LTC, and Home Help. BEM 400 says the cap does not apply while a spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child resides in the home (MDHHS BEM 400).
A home being excluded from countable resources does not make title, transfer, estate-recovery, or equity questions disappear. Michigan's Lady Bird deed is a distinct planning device whose estate-recovery interaction turns on its nonprobate structure, not merely on the asset exclusion (MSU Extension, Lady Bird Deeds; Michigan Lady Bird deed page).
2026 published limits: $9,950 for the specified one-person LTC asset group, $14,910 for the specified two-person group, and $752,000 in homestead equity for the stated LTC and HCBS categories. These are not a substitute for classifying the applicant's actual Medicaid category (
MDHHS BEM 400).
Income and married-couple protections are separate calculations
Michigan uses a $2,982 monthly special income level in 2026 for nursing home Medicaid, MI Choice, PACE, and MI Coordinated Health. That number is 300% of the 2026 individual SSI federal benefit rate, and it is separate from a resource limit (Medicaid.gov 2026 standards; MDHHS HCBS comparison chart).
In a community-spouse case, BEM 402 lists 2026 minimum and maximum resource standards of $32,532 and $162,660. The applicant spouse's individual limit for AD-Care and Extended Care is addressed separately once special community-spouse protections no longer apply (MDHHS BEM 402).
Do not combine Michigan figures with another state's rules
Michigan's published LTC resource figures differ sharply from Florida's Medicaid asset-limit structure. More importantly, Michigan's manuals distinguish LTC-specific, regular SSI-related, and community-spouse rules, so an apparent conflict may simply reflect different categories (MDHHS BEM 400; MDHHS BEM 402).
For the general sequence of resource, income, and care-need analysis, see Medicaid (Baseline). A current case should be screened under the effective BEM version rather than a generalized online table.
Not mutually exclusive. Most families combine two or three funding pillars — this one rarely stands alone.
The
Journey Assessment ranks all ten pillars against your specific situation and
recommends the top three.
