The quality of care would drop, but would still be better than most of the state run medicaid places. In my opinion, medicaid is a option of last resort. I would like to avoid using it for both quality of care and ethical reasons. I think if she can afford long term care, then she should buy it. I suspect that a life-time benefit LTC is out of her budget though.
Reverse mortgage is out of the question.
It would be like squeezing water out of a rock. In the worse case, she can just sell the house. I guess my next step is to call the nursing homes in my area for a general estimate of cost. I'll post more on this subject in the future.