Posted on 12/16/2013 7:39:27 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
As thousands of state residents enroll in Washingtons expanded Medicaid program, many will be surprised at fine print: After youre dead, your estate can be billed for ordinary health-care expenses. State officials are scrambling to change the rule.
It wasnt the moonlight, holiday-season euphoria or family pressure that made Sofia Prins and Gary Balhorn, both 62, suddenly decide to get married.
It was the fine print.
As fine print is wont to do, it had buried itself in a long form Balhorns application for free health insurance through the expanded state Medicaid program. As the paperwork lay on the dining-room table in Port Townsend, Prins began reading.
She was shocked: If youre 55 or over, Medicaid can come back after youre dead and bill your estate for ordinary health-care expenses.
The way Prins saw it, that meant health insurance via Medicaid is hardly free for Washington residents 55 or older. Its a loan, one whose payback requirements arent well advertised. And it penalizes people who, despite having a low income, have managed to keep a home or some savings they hope to pass to heirs, Prins said.
With an estimated 223,000 adults seeking health insurance headed toward Washingtons expanded Medicaid program over the next three years, the states estate-recovery rules, which allow collection of nearly all medical expenses, have come under fire.
Medicaid, in keeping with federal policy, has long tapped into estates. But because most low-income adults without disabilities could not qualify for typical medical coverage through Medicaid, recovery primarily involved expenses for nursing homes and other long-term care.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
“it is legal for them to put a gun to your head to make you comply with their will.”
Everything government does is done at the barrel of a gun.
bkmk
Everything government does is done at the barrel of a gun.
Oh, really?
Who makes the gov give five generations of welfare more and more money from MY tax dollars? Who makes the gov give food stamps and free phones to welfare recipients? Just yesterday, there was an article about the gov setting up gas stations for free gasoline in welfare areas.
Who is making the gov give zillions of dollars to illegals so they can get free education and free medical care? For every taker, there is someone working to support that leech while having to do without something in their own lives.
Exactly what do welfare recipients contribute to this country? ... other than making more jobs for more and more gov workers filling out paperwork to give away more and more tax dollars?
Back to the original premise of the article, I don't see a problem forcing 'payback' for medical care from an estate after death.
It is the same situation as to why no Democrat will say with any specificity what ‘rich’ is.
The problem with sloth is that any time the ‘government’ takes from producers and gives to ‘takers’ (takers being unfortunates, chronically unemployed, unemployable, and willful indigents) it further steels their assertions that ‘somebody HAS to help’. It encourages vehemence and indignation in the slothful and an outright sense of entitlement equal to none.
With that affirmation, the slothful will embark on all manners of irrational thought and excuses.
“The ride is free, but you cant keep what you squirreled away unless you do it 3 years before.”
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It’s five years in MA.
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Well, I was going on what it was when we had somewhat of a sane government - before the Tyrant Obama. Of course, it does not surprise me that he is willing to surreptitiously steal and tax anything he can get his hands on and still call it ‘redistributional equity.’
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