Medicaid Estate Recovery Protested!

By Sanford R. Altman 
Published: 11/13/11

Having written columns on senior issues for many years, I was caught by surprise by both of the number and intensity of the responses following my previous piece on the new state regulations allowing Medicaid to recover more from your estate. I received an unprecedented number of calls, requests to speak to groups, and readers wanting to consult with me in person.
Now, it is true that the new regulations put an unfair burden on seniors and their families. Even those who have diligently planned for protection of their assets in the event they need long-term care must now revisit those plans. However, there seems to be something more going on here.

Amazed by protest

A hint of what this might be hit me when I visited my two daughters, who have now moved out of the area and work in Manhattan. We decided that we would go downtown and see for ourselves what was going on at the Occupy Wall Street protest. What we saw amazed me. In one square city block, I saw people from all backgrounds and all ages, young and old alike, talking economics, benefits, taxes and more. They had their own newspaper, kitchen and medical service, and they took care of each other while getting their message out. Everyone was welcome, regardless of position or politics.
What tied this group together? All you had to do was read the signs that so many were holding. Here's a sample: "Angry Pacifist," "We are the 99%!", "Stop endless funding of endless wars" and "I'll believe that corporations are people when they execute one in Texas." In short, what ties these people together is that they have had enough.
They have had enough of CEOs with salaries through the roof who pay less taxes than their secretaries. They have had enough of budget cuts aimed at seniors and the middle class. They have had enough of banks getting billion-dollar bailouts and then refusing to make loans to small businesses.

Seniors fed up, too

It is this same pervasive mood that has seniors declaring that they have had enough of the government trying to balance the budget on their backs by promulgating regulations such as the expanded estate recovery for Medicaid. This is specifically aimed at seniors who find they need Medicaid to cover nursing home expenses or long-term care at home. As it is, Medicaid is the only program where the government looks to you or your family to pay back benefits you were legally entitled to receive.

Seniors feel victimized

Who bears the brunt of this? Seniors do. To pretend this is not a tax is insulting. When seniors now hear the governor say that, on top of this, he wants to end the tax for millionaires, they have had enough.
Now, the state can get its hands on your joint accounts, your home where you have had life rights, and trusts and other assets that used to be secure and could be inherited by your family. It's no wonder that seniors feel victimized.

Demand repeal of law

You don't need to go down to Manhattan and sleep in the park with the rest of Occupy Wall Street to express your displeasure. This is an issue where you can join the protest and stay here in the Hudson Valley. On an individual level, it is, of course, important that you ensure that your elder law plan is up to date in view of the new law. But on a more widespread level, the key to defeating this unjust law lies right in your legislative district. Contact your state legislators and demand that they vote to repeal the expanded Medicaid estate recovery law. Our state legislators have the power to do this and we, as their constituents, have the power to vote them out of office if they do not. If we can turn this around, my favorite sign from the protest will ring true for us: "The beginning is near."

Occupy Wall St

Occupy Wall St

AMERICANS AGAINST ESTATE RECOVERY

My grandfather was named for his grandfather and his grandfather was named for a beloved uncle who died at the Battle of Springfield in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. Our family had been forced to flee from that conflict to the safety and warm embrace of the mountains of northwestern New Jersey. And there they stayed. For over 200 years they lived and worked and created an American homeland. My grandfather was sent to France as  doughboy during WWI, witnessing horrors that were hard to describe. He then watched as his son was posted to the Pacific Theater of WWII. His son, my uncle, came home. My mother never strayed too far from home for too long. By the time she was 43, she was a widow with four children. She had a love of country nd instilled in me a strong interest in the American political system. Every four years we would huddle in front of the television screen together to watch every minute of both political party’s conventions.

My mother never accumulated much wealth during her life but she always paid the property taxes on the small house and four acres of land that she had inherited and, as long as she could sit in her yard and listen for the peepers on  June day, she had what she wanted in the world. Then tragedy stuck. My mother was caught in a fire and her house burned down. She was badly burned and not expected to live. Totally incapacitated, she was placed in a nursing home. Her modest income, with a homestead exemption for her land qualified her for Medicaid. She came under the umbrella of Medicaid Estate Recovery. Being so sick, I doubt that she fully understood what she was signing on for-if she had been a bit wealthier or if there had not been a fire, she might have had a planned estate that saved her land but that did not happen.

At the time of her death, her land, land that our family has owned since at least 1778, will be confiscated and sold to the highest bidder by the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program.

This program in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA).
 was part of the “Welfare Reforms” enacted during the Clinton Administration. Medicaid payments for the care of people who are over the age of 55 with low incomes is the only federal benefit where  repayments are mandated.  

A series of analytical studies have shown that this program specifically targets the elderly poor. Because they are simply too sick and too old to protest too loudly it has been allowed to slowly take what little of value the aged poor possess. It seems reasonable to take the bank accounts and other assets to pay for care, but a home should be left alone. This legislation was an early harbinger of the wholesale and callous home seizures that have recently become more common events. The sanctity of the American home is, it seems, a thing of the past, especially for the poor.

Medicaid Estate Recovery should be included in the scope of the current American social conscious and can only be resolved by changes at the federal level. The social security rates for the indigent elderly poor should be raised to a realistic level to cover the true cost of nursing home care, or, a homestead exemption from Medicaid Estate Recovery should be mandated.It may be too late for my mother’s land and heritage to be preserved, but I feel compelled to protect other families from a similar fate.

Medicaid Estate Recovery is a federal mandate that needs to be fixed in Washington.

If you would like to see Medicaid Estate Recovery reforms write or call your Congressman and Senators. Tell them Medicaid Estate Recovery has to be reformed to end this inequity. Attempting to fix the American Medical system or fill holes in the deficit by taking the homes of the elderly poor is morally wrong. It is bad public policy as well as a great social injustice.