Would Medicaid look at deceased spouse's assets as part of lookback?

Like I said interesting. I would look at it as Mom went first and had the right to leave it to "her" daughter. The money was never in step dads name. Always Moms. The worst Medicaid could do was ask for half I would think.

You have to come back and tell us what you find out. Really, I think this is the wave of the future. Married couples keeping their money separate.

Thanks to everyone for weighing in. I will get to a lawyer eventually. Right now I'm still dealing with the day to day stuff after the death of one parent and caregiving for the other. State is Illinois. Parents kept money separate always on purpose, even though they are legally married, I am the only child. The joint account was set up on purpose to leave the money to me, not the spouse. Both have accounts set up that way. My mom always said that she didn't want my dad to get remarried and have the money go to the new wife. She was not being sarcastic! I consider that money to be used for my father's care, but I can't find clear info on how medicaid would view it and if the lookback period would want the deceased spouse's bank records if the other spouse isn't on that account.

Generally speaking, it’s true spouse inherits but not always. Depends on the state, size of the estate and if children are all in common or from separate relationship from what I read online.
Plus many things pass outside of a will so being intestate doesn’t matter on those items. Many people arrange their affairs to pass assets outside of probate. Like this POD bank account. It passes outside intestate rules but how that is looked at by Medicaid I do not know. I agree with JoAnn it is an interesting question.

By law, when there is no will, the surviving spouse is entitled to everything that the deceased spouse had, including that checking account. So there is obviously more to the story. Why would a spouse not leave the cash to the survivor.

Very interesting question. Many married couples don't mingle their money. Probably because they usually both work. My daughter does this. She pays her bills, he his and mortgage and utilities are split up.

The assets of the married couple are considered. If this all happened within the 5 year look back, then this is a gift to the child from the total assets of the couple.

only income is considered separate.

unless they were no married....then there is no common law marriage, so Dad is just an individual without a legal link to Mom

Is this real or hypothetical?