I am not even sure what questions to ask an elder law attorney about Medicaid and assets. Any suggestions?

Just "skimmed" your answer and feel relieved already to have action to take, some thimgs mentioned are already in place and may need to be updated. i will report what progress i make. Thank you so much.

Sunflower - hiw wonderfully proactive! My suggestions are about planning before the visit.... try to get a binder going with documents that establish your & hubs net worth. Find those old insurance policies, any prepaid funeral & burial policies, both of your secondary health insurance policies, your banking and investment & SS & retirement EOY statements. Whatever can establish what $ is really out there to determine net worth.

If you have DPOA, wills, done add those to the binders.

Do a "face" sheet on both you & hubs. In the face sheet you put in all your basic data, DOB, any & all marriages & divorce & any children for the both of you.
Info on whomever would be DPOA & MPOA & guardian for both of you outside of you or your hubs too.

My bet is what will be suggested is to update all your legal & name a younger dpoa & mpoa and then get a prepaid preneed funeral & burial done and then figure out how much $ is discretionary & extra so that these funds can be moved into some sort of special needs account to provide for extras for hubs to get things that Medicaid does not pay for. Some states have pooled trusts that are the umbrella for the funds while other states still have the more old-school traditional special needs trust. (im a trustee on a SNT for a cousin who had polio in the 1960's that his parents set up ages ago). I'm assuming that eventually $ will run out so Medicaid will be needed and a well done SNT can work without an issue for Medicaid. Like for my cousin, he has used $ to get an adaptive vehicle so he can drive around. It also is most excellent to have $ for things not ever covered by Medicaid, like dental care.

The scary reality is that the costs of care, esoecially LTC, is staggering. Even if you think you have $......well at 8k -15k a month, even the best nest egg looses twigs. You may be suggested to move into a tiered facility that goes from IL to AL & then NH. If hubs needs extra hands you all could live in IL but get home health as needed. These can require a buy-in. Some don't. Some do not ever take Medicaid, not even for NH level care. A good elder arty will know what's what out in your community.

It's good you are thinking of all this now. Best of luck!!

If you are still on the younger side and you own property, you may want to ask about doing a SCIN to sell assets to family or others who would be an heir. Self Cancelling installment note. These tend to be done by grandparents to grandkids as the kids have lower tax issues. SCIN are not ever a DIY project as they have actuarial tables and other compliance needed to be valid but if it could fit for you all & you have a beloved grandkids, or kid or neice or younger BFF who wants to buy property, they are an option to consider. SCINs to me are generational wealth building 2.0.