You have to start asset protection via a good lawyer long before you need long-term or nursing home care.
Yep, I'm always encouraging my parents to hand it over,
another thing these retiree's need to do is pay off the IOU's they borrowed out of SSI, and not leave the debt.
Are you avoiding what you consider to be immorally high estate taxes or or intending to shift the burden of their long term care to the taxpayers via medicaid?