Sally concerning Medicare paying for either assisted living or nursing home, I really got an earfull and teary eyes full when learned about it. Medicare does not pay for nursing home care unless you are in "rehab" (expected to leave) or on hospice (six months being the norm). It is MUCH more complex than this, and hard to find information. The social worker told me untruths when Irv was dying, at the hospital, saying Medicare did not cover Hospice at all (but he died before transfer to the place where I was to pay thousands a month and also be required to live there and help 24/7.) I never could get long term care because I had an MS dx, even when Boeing sent out people to urge us to buy it...they would not take me, and Irv refused to take it if they wouldn't take me...they were embarrassed about urging me to take it when it turned out they wouldn't.

Even if you get long term nursing home through Medicaid, because you have spent most of your money, you have to fight for it, sometimes for years, according to a man here.
He was planning to divorce his wife so she could qualify for Medicaid nursing home.
Most people here in nursing home (a bad one which smells of urine and chlorine and has unhealthy food) pay $6000 a month, private pay. If they are indigent and have no relatives, I guess they have to try to qualify for Medicaid.
Forgive me if I'm missing something. I was in shock finding out these things, I may not be 100% correct.
I didn't qualify for hospitalization after I broke my knee and had a cast to my hip and could not bend my leg. I was told to go to a motel and order pizza (exact words of doctor). Obviously I couldn't sit on a toilet without help or a raiser. They sent me to an
independent living place for only $4500 a month, which I could afford for a short time, but the staff would not help me get on the toilet and said I'd falsified my ability while I was in the hospital those few days. Even the few days in hospital were because they didn't have a proper cast for my leg the night I came in. I cried all the time about this situation, and they got a psychiatrist to come see me, with 3 wooden faced "interns". When the psychiatrist found out I had MS, he looked interested for a moment, maybe thinking I could qualify for nursing home on that, but he quickly moved on. Within a month I qualified for nursing home Medicare because I had a TIA in the sadistic surgeon's office (the one who told me to go to a motel and eat pizza). They sent me to the best cardiac care hospital in Seattle, which "of course" put me in a nursing home on leaving.

Sounds worse than it was, in a way, because I kept my faith, had some nice companions in all the facilities, and was able to go home in three months, with enough money left to travel 1400 miles to home. It was a nasty situation and I'm sure you've all been there in one way or another. It's par for the course. We do not live in Paradise.