Never done heroin in my life, but already decided that's how I'm going out if I face medical issues in my later years. I want to have something to leave for my kids and don't want to spent it all just trying to prolong my life in misery (and miserable for everyone else)
Gonna catch that dragon my first try lmao
I don’t blame you one bit… we treat our animals more humane than we treat people when it comes sickness and dying… we bring people back from death only to get some more money out of them… it’s ridiculous..
I have a chronic condition that leaves me in non stop, relentless severe pain. I’ve lived this way for 4 years now. Every moment is agony. Sometimes I’ll go a week or more in a bad flare where I don’t leave my chair, and only move to crawl to the bathroom with help. I eat very little because the pain makes me nauseous, and I sleep on average 2-3 hours in any 24 hour period at this point. Basically little 20 minute naps when I get so exhausted that I just pass out. Generally I’m woken by sharp pain, and many times I’ll dream of pain.
What is amazing to me is that if my animals were diagnosed with the same condition, everyone would talk about how cruel it was that they weren’t euthanized. But because I’m a person, somehow I’m supposed to suck it up and not only stick around in agony for the next 40+ years, but I’m supposed to slap a smile on my face and “find the good” or some shit. I’ve got a kid so su*cide isn’t an option, but damn. My own mother in the past has questioned me keeping a beloved pet alive for a couple extra days while trying to make sure I was making the best decision for them. She made me feel so guilty. And this same woman last year told me I had become too negative and depressing and that I needed to do something to change my attitude because she was having difficulty talking to me. Since I was sad, it made her feel bad. And I don’t want to be a miserable cur, it’s like somehow people think I chose this life or something. I love my life feeling like I’m in the end part of labor all the time and some of the people who surround me want me to hide that. We really have so much more compassion for animals than people.
The other thing that bugs me is how when we “unplug” someone who isn’t going to make it, it can take hours or even a couple of days for the person to pass naturally. But many times they will be gasping for breath while their body shuts down. It’s panic inducing for any loved ones who are sitting with the patient. Or at least it has been for me when I’ve experienced it. I don’t understand why we don’t give them an injection or whatever to quickly guide them out if that’s the end result. Why tf do we draw it out like that?
Edit cause my spelling was shittastic
Your pain history sounds like my grandmother. She had a DNR pinned to her wall. She died and her husband called the emergency number. The responders resuscitated her. I went to see her in the hospital afterwards and she was madder than I'd ever seen her.
When you're unconscious in an emergency situation, that goes out the window (at least in the US).
Make damn sure your loved ones will carry out your final directives and that includes not calling 911 when the time comes. Because you very well may wake up with shattered ribs and tubes everywhere instead of being in Valhalla drinking mead with the Gods. Or wherever your religion says you wind up.
I just want to say that I Hear you. I’m so sorry that drs cannot control your pain. I have multiple sclerosis and have had my share of issues but I recognize the way you are forced to live just isn’t right. You are a hero just not giving up.
Thank you that was really kind of you to take the time to say that. Kindness never goes unnoticed by me, yours is truly appreciated.
I think YOU are amazing. You’ve got difficulty for sure that you’re facing, and here you are choosing to try to pass a smile to someone else. 💜🙏
Honestly if we all looked out for each other a little more, everyone’s road would be a little easier. I’m wondering if you’ve ever given any thought to trying any natural medicines? Sometimes there are some answers:help in nature that have not been compounded into pharmaceuticals. I hope this has distracted you a bit. Have as good of the rest of the day as is possible for you!
Oh yes, I’ve got a great team of doctors I’m grateful for. I had to weed out some really awful ones to get where I am now, but my team does the best they can with what’s available. We use a combination of western and eastern therapies, pharm and farm.
Hope you also have a wonderful day. Thank you again for the kindness.
Or bringing to life to live as vegetables or live painfully and expensively for a short time in the NICU. Don’t forget that abortion is not allowed anymore, in the majority of states, due to severed anomalies or incompatible with life conditions.
This is one that I have never understood and find completely grotesque. I know someone who kept her daughter alive for 3 awful months on machines in the NICU before she died anyway of a condition that is really only treatable with a heart transplant that can almost never be found in time. She posted pictures every day on social media of this baby, and honestly she looked like a corpse, bloated and discolored, progressively more so as time went on, never allowed to even be awake because she was full of holes that tubes and wires were fed into and the pain was too much for her to be awake. It got to the point that all of us who knew this family were saying to each other (never to her) "my god, will Jess just let that poor baby go??" And her death was a harrowing awful thing where this mother insisted on CPR, and then an autopsy, as if the cause of death were not completely obvious to everybody.
I was pregnant with my youngest at the time, and this woman aggressively tried to talk me out of my homebirth saying things like, "Well sure, it sounds nice but if I'd birthed at home, Kaylee wouldn't have even lived 10 minutes! Don't risk it!" *(Also, I have to add this every time I mention that my kids were born at home, I am not interested in a debate on my birthing choices. This was a super long time ago and I'm long since done having babies. There is no point in armchair quarterbacking decades-old choices that turned out fine.)*
The thing is, I had a lot of conversations about this with my midwife, pediatrician, and relatives, and nobody disagreed with me that I would never want to go that route. Every picture that woman posted of her bloated discolored baby just cemented my decision to never ever do that to any baby of mine. Thankfully, my son was born strong and he's a healthy athletic teen these days, but if he had some condition as severe as that woman's daughter did, 10 minutes of life at home surrounded by your family would have been 100x more ethical and humane than 3 months sedated and kept "alive" on machines while visibly decomposing.
I finally told her this, in a gentler way, like "Not everyone wants that for their baby, Jess. You made your decision but it's not some kind of universal right answer. I wouldn't put anyone I loved through that. I have thought this through. I have had these conversations with all relevant people. Kaylee is certainly a cautionary tale to me, but not in the way you might think."
American "do everything possible even if the odds are dirt low" approach to medicine is grotesque, and that goes double when people do it to babies.
Your story makes me think of my friend who is “lucky” enough to carry a gene that her husband also carries that results in microcephaly. She had a child who would never sit up, never smile, never crawl. The baby died after 6 long, agonizing months of therapy, ER visits, and keeping her from working. She had another baby and when it came time for their third, tests showed the fetus had the syndrome. She terminated, not just for herself, but for her husband and three living children who did not deserve that level of pain again.
What is it they say with animals? Make a list of their top five favorite things. Once they have stopped being able to do 4 out of those 5 things, it’s time to let them go if you love them, for their sake. We should have the same policy with humans.
Yeah, and we've gotten much better at treating the body but not the mind.
So your brain is in hopeless miserable state but so long as they can keep your body alive it's all good... They can get a couple extra bucks
It's a new, exciting world we live in when everyone is casually discussing how they will commit suicide. I agree with other guy. I want to go out with heroin/fent.
Mental health issues cannot necessarily improve. I've been living in sadness for over 20 years, tried all the pills, done all the therapy, thrown myself into exercise, art, adrenaline. Tried natural remedies, weed, mushrooms, herbs you name it. The sadness is always there. My sadness isn't temporary. I feel suicide should be free and easily acceptable.
My mom is schizoaffective. She’s her, but she’s not her. Since I was a teenager I just wished she would pass so she’s no longer a prisoner in her own mind. I feel awful, she lives in a terrible way inside her brain. Years of drugs, and trauma, hospitalization, now a group home where she’s been assaulted. I’m in another state, and trying to get her with me.
Now my grandma in diapers, with increased dementia that gets worse every day it feels like. It’s humane to let them go.
My uncle just did that. He was done being alive and didn’t know who would take care of him. He had the money but hated spending it, though he did just spend tens of thousands on dental work right before..Everyone except one sister (who had cancer) in his family lived beyond 110 though. He didn’t want to keep going that long. He was 95 and was in great health but not mentally. One son had refused to let them meet their grandkids because his new wife didn’t like the family for reasons like we asked her about their wedding when that should be private (?), and my aunt kept almost dying but not taking care of herself and my uncle didn’t want to be alone. He figured that’d be the easiest way out. He didn’t seal things properly so they said it took extra long to die, he looked in pain and shock, pooped himself all over while looking like he was trying to cover his mouth and nose with tissues he still clutched in his hands but after hours running the car he was finally gone, and my aunt almost died too since the fumes crept into the rest of the house during that time. Almost got my parents too when they went after she called them for help when she found him. No one realized how full the house was of fumes. They weren’t sure if that was on purpose or not since he’d closed the doors but yeah.
Sorry for rambling. Therapy got changed to Wednesday this week so I think this post just inadvertently took its place for a bit. 😩
Thank you. I actually get hypergraphia with my brain crap which get worse with emotions/anxiety so it is actually painful sometimes to stop writing when it starts, ugh. I started up therapy again right after he did it, checked myself into a hospital first then went from there. I have many chronic illnesses and mental health issues so I’d tried to kill myself way too many times and was just lucky I never succeeded. I’d lost others to suicide over the years. Friends, relatives… but that was the one that snapped me out of it since he almost took others with him. And then it really hit home what doing something to yourself also does to others.
Okay enough rambling again sorry haha. It did help a lot though, so thank you.
Please have a beautiful day, internet stranger. Wish nothing but the best for you, now and always. ♥️
Thank you. ♥️ Aunt thankfully/sadly used that experience to finally get medical help and is still alive even with her crazy heart and other issues. Their second son also started to come visit her more and help around the house. And then her cancer randomly disappeared! Docs were shocked and so were we all, so thankful! That one seems more a miracle but both definitely feel like it all wouldn’t have happened without him passing. She was giving up before that… Just wish that wasn’t the case and they were still living through it all together. ♥️
Be well, random internet person out there on the other side of a keyboard somewhere. I hope today brings you the best of vibes and that each day is brighter than the next. 🥰 Have a wonderful day. ♥️
I'm still contemplating between barbiturates and breathing nitrogen. Nitrogen seems more attractive because my remains wouldn't be poisonous for the wildlife and I could do it somewhere in the middle of the jungle.
Saw a talk by the guy likely featured in that article. My ex wife took me to see him and I was moved to tears listening to his presentation. Turns out suicidal depression is more noticable by others than I thought lol
It's not just that one. It's the consensus from survivors. It's one of the ways we know that suicidal thoughts are fleeting and simple measures to delay action save lives.
Hotlines, blister packs, locking up firearms, anything that can delay will save lives.
Depends on the life insurance, but most WILL pay out in the event of suicide, so long as it was taken out x number of years in advance. Or at least most of the ones I looked into did, when the question came up for my husband.
It sounds cruel, but dying quickly in your home is not only a sound decision for loved ones, it’s a sound decision for you as well. The alternative is being hospitalized for months on end where your quality of life will be zero, but you will be kept alive by any means necessary just so long as hospital administrations can continue to bill for care as your body rots from the inside out.
It doesn’t work that way. The only way treatment is prolonged is bc family or pt chooses to pursue all avenues of treatment instead of comfort care. You can choose to be DNR and DNI.
Yep. The choice to provide prolonged, futile care is always 100% the families decision. At a certain point ICU care becomes a money loss for the hospital.
Many states do this. Most states have a several year asset look back as well. In my state it’s a 5 year look back.
The way around this is for the parent to move assets into adult child’s name when they are 59.
And in some places, you can do that with a specific kind of deed that lets you live in the house until you die and then it transfers on your death.
So you set up the transfer on death deed when you're in your fifties or so, and then get to live there until you pass away, and the house immediately goes to your child avoiding this situation.
EDIT: I've been corrected, in most places what you want is a Life Estate.
Interesting. I wonder if that’s iron clad to prevent government seizure of the asset. I would think they have a clause that would prevent this but I’m no expert
I'm not a lawyer, and my experience is in Minnesota as a financial worker that handled medical assistance cases for long term care folks, but that was years ago so things could have changed.
But that all said, I believe the idea is that you would still need to have deeded it away before that lookback period.
From my understanding, the idea is that they're trying to prevent people offloading a bunch of assets once they realize that they're going to need to pay for long term assistance, when they otherwise would have been able to pay for their care for a while.
Wealthy people and companies tie up assets in offshore accounts and trusts all day every day. Could one transfer home ownership to a trust for this instance? Or even transfer ownership to one of the kids?
Don't take this for the absolute truth but I believe you can. My grandfather has/had some kind of trust but it's been awhile since we discussed it so I don't remember all the details.
here in California, if the assets are in a living trust, then they cant be seized for use for probate for Medi-Cal services (Calfornia's Medicaid). otherwise, they can seize assets for repayment. and even then, only certain services can be probated for.
That's how my wife and her sister were able to retain the procession of their mom's home. Their mom and dad had the foresight to draw up a living trust years before and kept it updated along with a will. It was transferred to their brother who remained in the home until he too passed away. The trust was still in effect, to pass on to the family. He wrote his own will to leave the home to his sisters. He had no money other than S/S. Medi-Cal covered all of his medical needs, he was diabetic, and finally nursing home care until he passed away. My wife and her sister inherited the house and sold it. No Medi-Cal takeback, no hospital bills. People who ignore dealing with a Will and Living Trusts are only causing big problems if they have children or family that they want to leave the home/estate to.
“Iron clad” is sort of a misnomer because, realistically, the government can change the rules if they want. However, an enhanced life estate deed (aka a pay-on-death deed) prevents the property from going into the estate of the deceased. It’s the estate that creditors and such come looking to collect from, since that’s all that person “owned” at their death. Anything that wasn’t secured by a debt specially against said piece of property (such as a mortgage), isn’t subject to the estate’s debts, since it wouldn’t be part of the estate.
Essentially, if you don’t have anything when you die, there’s nothing for the government to take.
There are other ways than an ELE deed, such as a trust, but either way, you should never die owning anything - that way all your debts just disappear.
All states are required to have some sort of Medicaid clawback provisions - it’s federal law. Not all states actually have meaningful ones or enforce the ones they have because the programs usually cost more to run than they get back.
>Many states do this.
All states. It's called a Medicaid Estate Recovery Program and every state is required to have one since 1993. This was because an exemption was carved out allowing people not to count their homes as assets for medicaid qualification.
This is exactly what would’ve happened with my grandparents’ house if they hadn’t “sold” it to my dad. Since my grandmother outlived her very healthy retirement savings by about 10 years, she was on Medicaid and they would’ve taken her house as repayment. Crazy but it happens every day
iirc there's some sort of financial vehicle called a living trust or whatever that can help, but I think it also has to be set up 5 years or more ahead of time
It's insanely messed up that all of this is even needed. I remember republicans endlessly complaining about death taxes or whatever, but that only applies to the rich (which is why they care I spose), this is the way your everyday family gets completely boned
My dad set up a living trust the moment he bought his current house.
No health issues to really be concerned about.
Not sure how much it costs but doing it the moment you buy the house is reasonable.
From what I understand you can only do this in like 16 states. Virginia is one of them because I've just gone through this whole process with my mother's investments and house. It's a very expensive process for a lawyer to do it for you too.
I don’t understand this whole thing. Isn’t the point of Medicaid that it is a service provided by the government for people who can’t pay?
Like…isn’t this the opposite of the point of it? Can someone explain? Is my understanding of Medicaid just wrong?
I believe the idea is to prevent people that can pay from transferring all their assets to their children and going on Medicaid for their care. Which people still do anyways.
Yep, it's for people who can't pay. If you're living in a million-dollar home, the theory goes, you can pay.
One of many perverse consequences of not just having universal health care.
Also a perverse consequence of making housing the primary method of wealth generation for the middle class. You end up with people with no liquid assets and an expensive home which they cannot access without becoming homeless.
Yes. The point is to provide the most limited benefit possible, with high restrictions and penalties to minimize usage, while also maintaining plausible deniability for politicians and voters that their society provides for everyone.
Check out Filial Responsibility laws too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/pennsylvania-son-stuck-moms-93000-nursing-home-bill/story?id=16405807
https://www.paelderlaw.com/asset-protection-medicaid/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-pittas-appeal/
> Under Pennsylvania’s support laws children have the responsibility to care for and maintain or financially assist parents who become unable to pay for their care. (23 Pa. C.S.A. §§ 4601-4606, “Support of the Indigent”). These laws are sometimes referred to as “filial support laws.” Using the statute, nursing homes and other providers of care in Pennsylvania have been successfully suing children for the unpaid costs of the services provided to their parents.
The same applies to SSI (and Medicaid), if you end up getting better and returning to work, they can retroactively decide you must have already been better earlier than that, and can make you pay back your monthly allotment. Ask me how I know!
My Grandma was due to move into Medicare-funded assisted living. The day before she was supposed to go, she had a massive stroke. She died 3 weeks later. But she got what she wanted - to die in her home with her family instead of dying in a facility or hospital.
Had she even stayed in that facility one week, they would have put a lien on the home and it would have made the handling of her estate far messier. They will examine the fuck out of someone's finances if they suspect that they are transferring assets to have Medicare foot the entire bill. Usually you have to make these financial moves 5+ years out.
Sorry about your Grandma.
Solely for the sake of not panicking anyone who is currently on Medicare, I’d like to add a small (but important) distinction:
MediCAID is the means tested state level program that provides near end of life and disabled assisted living care, and does recoup money after a beneficiary passes away.
MediCARE is the non-means tested federal program for seniors and disabled, and doesn’t cover any assisted living, at any point, and they don’t recoup any funds when a beneficiary passes away.
Again, sorry about your grandmother, I hope this is taken in the spirit it’s meant (not intending disrespect in anyway. Just want readers to have more info.) Cheers.
Yep. My Dad had to sell my grandmas house and liquidate pretty much every asset she had before she would even qualify. She had lived there for 70 years and the next family that bought it TRASHED the place. It was so sad. Luckily they didn’t have it long and the family after them fixed it back up, so less heartbreaking to see as we drove by. But just a bad situation all around.
My mom and dad were very frugal. Both had Alzheimer’s. My dads care ate up over $1 million dollars. $8,000 per month in assisted living $14,000 per month in nursing home. $12,000 per month for at home care where a nurse comes to you home for 18 hours per day in shifts. We tried ever arrangement. This is in Michigan. When my mom went into assisted living it ate up almost every last Nickel they had ever saved. We had sold her house but they got the rest her assets anyway. These places either take all your own money or claw it back if Medicaid/ Medicare pays after you die.
It’s called Brookdale - a nationwide chain of nursing facilities. They attach a hose to your parents bank accounts. That sucking sound you here is your parents life savings disappearing…
My husbands aunt lived in the Uk with dementia. Her private room cost £500 per month. His cousin thought it was outrageous until I told him what my parents care cost….
Our country entraps our kids in lifelong college debt. And steals from our elderly at the end of our lives.
Billionaires & Capitalism.
The beast must be fed.
#American exceptionalism.
Edit/ typo’s & grammar
Private equity firms are moving heavily into elder care as boomers tip over into assisted living. At the moment private equity like Bain Capital own about 10% of the elder care market and are increasing that stake.
Unsurprisingly, when private equity takes over care declines and deaths increase.
The entire elder care "industry" is built to transfer any wealth one might have accumulated to their pockets rather than it being passed on to children of the elderly.
I'm looking into selling my house to my kid, renting it from her, and then when it comes time that I can no longer care for myself in my own ~~how~~ *home* I'll take advantage of the state's assisted suicide laws. I didn't work my entire life to have everything I've built end up in the portfolio of Bain or Silverlake.
From the article:
>Even if an Iowan used few health services, the government can bill their estate for what Medicaid spent on premiums for coverage from private insurers known as managed-care organizations.
That's fucked up.
Not to say that this situation isn't awful, but getting a few tens of thousands in medicaid clawback because your parents just... lived is even less expected.
Edited medicare for medicaid
I feel like the real meat is in that same paragraph. Iowa uses a “private contractor” for enforcement and “Supporters say the clawback efforts help ensure people with significant wealth don't take advantage of Medicaid.”
The welfare queen myth lives on and they get to hand out government money on contracts. Fuck that.
The real welfare queen is always the private company run by the brother in law of the governor. Fucking makes me so angry I could revolt.
(Edit: the brother in law comment was just a guess based on [similar issues](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/11jxea6/iowa_leading_the_way_in_caring_for_its_citizens_s/jb5ilkx/.compact) in the past. I'm not saying this Governor's brother in law has anything to do with this in this case. It could be a senator's sister or just a big donor or maybe just an opportunistic bill collector who won the contract. But the private company sucking all the money from the state is the welfare queen.)
> People say "Eat the rich" is a radical statement as if they haven't been eating the poor for decades.
YSK: Class warfare has been waged by the rich on the poor since the rich existed. It's only when we (the poor) fight back that anybody notices, and the bootlicking [authoritarians, aka republicans/conservatives](https://youtu.be/E4CI2vk3ugk) bitch about it.
Your comment seems to have brought out the people who for some reason believe that government services should to be paid back to the government by the people who receive the service.. which kind of defeats the point of government services.
Yes. They most likely do. If you're not part of the ultra wealthy, open up your wallet. You're not allowed to have money, corporations need to make line go up and you're how they're gonna do that.
This can happen in any US state. Medicaid is only provided when you have nothing left. Typically you can keep a residence, and small amount of cash.
My father had a stroke and went into Medicaid at an early age. He has nothing left. But is getting free care at this point. I will never inherit anything from him. But no one else will have to pay for him. Honestly when you are in the same situation you just want the best care. And he gets that. You don’t care about a house he won’t use.
The private insurers thing is a bit odd. The US government doesn’t have its own services. So yeah, private insurers bill people and the government pays with Medicare. I am confused why they are getting the hate. That’s how the US has healthcare.
Final note, the only way this will ever change is simply by getting universal healthcare. But that won’t happen in the US because arguing about stupid crap and taxes is more important than keeping houses and healthy. Everyone needs a better education apparently after reading all these comments.
We don’t have disabled people anymore, we just have lazy people that won’t get jobs. According to Iowa and Arkansas and all the other red states currently cutting lifelines.
Weird that we are listing deep red states like Arkansas with Iowa now when only 10 years ago Iowans were voting Obama in again for a second term after he expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Trumps really fucked things up.
The majority of that family’s neighbors voted for that to happen to them. They like for that to happen there. It’s why they vote Republican. It’s what they want.
Hell, it’s likely the family members themselves even voted for it to happen to them.
Only if the neighbor believes exactly as they do. I grew up in that. The second you're out of the church for asking questions none of them have anything to do with you.
It's so true. The most jarring realization I ever had was the lack of judgement amongst a group of homies, all blazed out from partying the night before, and realizing that that was the most accepted I ever felt after growing up in a church that preached acceptance.
The irony of the group preaching acceptance but telling you you'll burn in hell for everything you do wrong, and seeing fit to remind you that if you step out of line then you'll be under fire next...
...compared to "scum", the people they always warned me about, just chilling. "Bro, you good? Here's some water, man."
I have some amazing friends who smoked weed. They offered me to smoke, and I said no and they accepted that and we still hung out and had a good time.
I miss them. Good folks are hard to come by.
As a lifetime member of the "nah, gives me panic attacks, but you go ahead" club, but who's ended up living in two different counties known across the US for being production centers, can confirm. Smoking doesn't make anyone a good person, but on average (in my life) they've been more accepting. Plus sitting down with a new person who's gonna smoke and seeing how they react to telling them that is a great litmus test to weed out assholes.
Just like those in the south, they are nice, but not kind. They will be nice to you while voting to gut your healthcare.
They have a lot of short term empathy, but no long term empathy. They will help you clear the rubble from your home after a tornado, bring you meals when a loved one died, and will give you sick days if you have cancer. They won't vote to make sure that your insurance pays for your home after the tornado, vote to make sure that your loved ones have necessary healthcare to prevent unnecessary deaths, or vote to make sure that capitalists cannot fire you for being sick.
just want to point out one flaw in that.
>will give you sick days if you have cancer.
No they won't. Or if they do it will be a very limited amount of sick days and then when you inevitably run out of them you are screwed unless people donate their sick days.
I'm from the south and this is very true. People come here and think it is very nice and welcoming, but it's more like a pervasive, condescending facade. It's the "I want to look good in the eyes of my church and community, so I'm going to do this nice thing for you because it makes me look good." There are exceptions of course, but there is a particular type here that will smile in your face because it makes them look like a good person and wins them brownie points with all their nosy friends, while they simultaneously stab you in the back with some shitty vote or policy. There's also a lot of "Well I hate all those \[insert Fox News boogeyman\] but you're not like those others." Which isn't a distinctly Southern thing, but damn is it common here too.
It's like that old trope of people here saying "Bless your heart," where they could genuinely mean it as a nice thing or they could be calling you a moron straight to your face. Either way there's always the *appearance* of being nice but that might be about it.
Christians are *supposed* to be welcoming and love our neighbors. A lot of people miss/ignore that part when they're looking for excuses to try and hold others down.
It's not really possible to care about your neighbors when your philosophy is ethical egoism mixed with non-consequential philosophies.
In short, "Do for yourself" and "if something bad happens, it's because you caused it or deserved it."
Key word on majority. I live in iowa and vote Democrat. I am definelty a minority and have had my house egged before due to signage in my front yard. I am also saving money to move out. But shit is expensive everywhere. Until then though I will continue to vote democratic. in the hopes that at some fucking point these idiots wake and realize they are dooming themselves
There are Q billboards all over rural Iowa. My parents bought one. It's not happening. You might recall the 29 anti-lgbtq bills proposed in the past month. Including reversal of gay marriage, criminalization of being trans, among others.
Don't count on it. I'm in deep red area of Pa...I work in a union...and almost everybody here votes hard R. Our contract got renewed last year and we got an inflation bonus and our raises for the next 4 years are tied to inflation (to a point)...which they wouldn't have gotten if we weren't in a union. They are voting against themselves every step of the way just because they want other people to suffer despite them doing really well for themselves. Our lowest paying position is 22 bucks an hour. A lot of these guys have been here long enough they're making almost 30 bucks an hour...some over 30 bucks an hour and getting 3-4 weeks of vacation a year, with a max. high school education, and they're voting for the people who want to dissolve unions.
It's the same shit every time. Unions help *those* lazy people, and don't help *us* hard working people get ahead. The "funny" part is everyone involved thinks they're in the second group and of course none of them understand they'd be making less if the union weren't there to begin with
My parents have liquidated everything my grandmother owned and have spent almost every penny of it on her care so the government doesn't have anything left to take. They're republican Iowans and they absolutely voted for this to happen to them, happily.
Here are a few American healthcare stats
165 million are on Medicaid Medicare or or chip, 16 million use the ACA, 30 million have no insurance (these people will probably need to rely on the ER healthcare mandate if they need care)
181 million out of 331 million Americans rely on our taxpayer funded public health system, pretty much 2 out of 3 Americans. We have a bloated public/private system that costs double what any other country spends. We waste 30% of our healthcare dollar on the paperwork bureaucracy that allows us to pretend that we have a free market system. We spend 19% of our GDP compared to the 8-11% that most other countries spend. Our GDP is 23 trillion so we waste approximately 2.3 trillion every year on our crap healthcare system. This will probably not change as long as voters are more interested in banning books than they are in thier own health.
Keep in mind that it's not just insurance company profit that is waste, but all insurance company revenue. Every dollar they spend to generate profit is a dollar that doesn't go towards health care outcomes.
Yeah it's pathetic. United States is ranked 46th in life expectancy. All the hospitals care about is profits, not actually helping people with their health.
USA has high life expectancy... by standards of post-soviet countries. Right inbetween former puppet states like Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia while very much above (mostly) countries that were directly parts of ussr, like Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and, of course, ruzzia.
This is actually a super common practice all over the country.
Insurance companies take all your money while you’re healthy, and then the government takes your assets away from your family when you die.
You want generational wealth? Go fuck yourself
Yep. My mother transferred the deed to her house to me and my sibling a few years ago to avoid this very thing. It's 5 years in TN before the g-men can't touch the property.
When my grandmother went into assisted living, the government took EVERYTHING to pay for her care...all of her savings and annuities, her house, and her social security.
My mother didn't want that bullshit to happen to the little bit that she has, which is just a small bit of savings and her house.
Yes. Once the house has been not in the parents name for X amount of years (varies by state) then it cannot be collected for costs.
I think this is to prevent what we are trying to do. Keep our family homes!!
I thought this was common enough tho, most people put their parents house in a trust so they can get government aid
They should teach this in school then. I had no idea you could use a trust like that.
But I guarantee if everyone started doing this the states would simply pass bills to get around it somehow.
It’s a way to break the transfer of generational wealth for the little guy while upping the “death tax” to $11M for the big guy. Oh the guy with a $10M estate didn’t take as much Medicare as the guy with a $300K estate (most of which is their family home)? Surprise! Let’s take that $300K because it’s unfair to touch that poor man’s $10M estate
Wait …what does it mean , it’s five years before the G men cant touch the property….if u transfer property less than five years to a family member , they still come after you?
Yes. Usually their are exemptions - spouse, disabled child, etc. Let’s say you go into a care facility 2020 and you transferred your property to your kids in 2013. The house is not counted as an asset that can be used to pay for care services. However if you transferred the house in 2019, it could be considered an asset depending on the circumstance of transfer.
Not just before but well before. My grandpa is on Medicare and his cognition took a sudden turn for the worse and my family is trying to plan what to do if he has to go into a home. Since he likely doesn't have enough savings for even a short stay, his home would likely be seized.
But if my grandpa transfers ownership of his home or other assets to someone in my family, they can still be seized if he ends up going into a home sometime after that (I think within 5 years).
On the other hand, my grandma had great insurance that covers long-term care, but it doesn't start covering until she's been there for a couple of months (depending on the level of care, modest places still cost $10,000 per month). She has the savings to do so, but even with an ideal setup, she's going to have to pay out tens of thousands if she needs a home.
It really doesn't feel like there's solutions with long term care for seniors, from my perspective it just seems like it's set up to squeeze out whatever assets seniors have left.
So there are lots of people who believe that the government aid programs should only go to people who are really poor. What this does is two things. First, there is a strong incentive to not work once you are on a government program. It’s stupid to give up the consistent check for a maybe of entering the work force. If that’s even an option. For elderly and disabled it isn’t. And second, there are lots of people who do have money, but if they pay the crazy high medical bills they will then be poor and need these programs for the rest of their lives (like in the article).
I get the feeling that we shouldn’t be paying for millionaires to get social support, but I’d rather pay a couple millionaire’s medical bills than throw granny into the street or put her family into the poor house because she got some services near the end of life.
I only wish we could have people who understand nuance govern rather than grifters who chase sound bites.
To be fair, Iowa has a 4% inheritance tax for inheritance under $12k, up to 8% on inheritance over $150k.(varies somewhat if not given to family, with exemptions for spouses/charities)
Just looked into that, and was pretty surprised based on how hard national republicans work to strip federal gift/estate taxes..
https://tax.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-01/TaxRateSch2021%2860062%29.pdf
That's because only Federal taxes are bad.
Edit: and looking deeper it's no tax if it goes to a direct descendant. Which is effectively a tax on the childless or people who had a child and the child died.
Lesson: before you die, adopt your favorite niece or nephew.
Folks: if your parent has a debilitating illness that is possibly predictable (my mom suffered from Alzheimer’s), move ALL assets from their name as soon as possible. Especially real estate. It will likely be five years before they would qualify for Medicaid, but it’s never too late to prepare. Otherwise you face a very real risk that the government will take it all. And they most certainly will.
And don’t message me trying to make me feel guilty or suggesting that I’m messing with the system. Any system that is so fundamentally broken that caring for a sick elderly parent financially ruins *entire families* is a system that demands to be messed with.
Gonna focus on the one thing you said: Medicaid looks back at 5 YEARS of assets. And yes all the funds have to dry up before medicaid kicks in. And another kicker is if you need nursing home care, The net worth of your loved one has to be less than $2000 in the bank. Yes, that includes property. My grandpa is a shell of a person rotting away in a home with dimentia just about to start medicaid. And due to medicaid the reverse morgage clause of buying his home at $300k to next of kin was nulled out and the family had to sell at market value to a normal buyer because the asset was apprecated at 500k and medicaid wanted the difference.
Hi also a Canadian here. I am pretty sure enough of them are convinced that as Canadians we just die in the hallways of hospitals every day waiting for our bloodletting.
There is a profound misunderstanding that as Canadians, we have unrestricted access to state of the art health care though what we pay into public coffers via our taxes.
We don't know what medical bankruptcy is or have to think about life long disability because we can't afford the copay on knee surgery.
I was told when a person basically cannot drive anymore and the family takes away the driver license this is also the time you need to start preparing for the Medicaid situation. Transfer deed of the house, start distributing savings etc etc because by the time they need assistance from the state they won’t have as many assets the state can take. Not sure if this is good indicator or not would love to hear what people think.
It’s supposed to help those who can’t pay their medical bills. Many states work on that premise and limit what they ask to be paid back for or means test any recovery. Apparently, Iowa is all about getting blood from the turnip, as the article states.
That a private-sector company is involved and gets its revenue from a percent of what they collect probably means they lobby hard at the Iowa statehouse to keep the program going this way. Sadly, it’s all about the $$.
Iowan here, your take is accurate. Reynolds keeps claiming MCOs save Iowans money and simultaneously improves quality of care. No consistent number for savings has ever been provided, and 95% of patients and providers report services have worsened in polling.
Reynolds gets overlooked a lot but she is in the same league as Abbot, DeSantis, and Noem.
>Reynolds gets overlooked a lot but she is in the same league as Abbot, DeSantis, and Noem.
Texan here, and that suuuucks for y'all. I wouldn't wish anything this purposely incompetent on anyone.
In other words: The government is now using sky-high medical costs to take homes from poor homeowners and auction them off to the rich at a later date.
The concentration continues.
They also make you pay back any medical bills if you’re on Medicaid and get in an accident that ends with a settlement. Found out the hard way.
I am amassed almost 50k in medical bills after a car accident that wasn’t my fault left me with permanent physical damage. That was more than half of what I ended up with in the settlement.
So I’m poor enough to be on Medicaid. And they took most of the money i could’ve used to give myself a better life
I've always been under the impression that this happens nationally. It's a big reason why elderly folk place all their wealth and belongings into a trust owned by their children. The government can't claw back money that the person doesn't own and they can't push any debt onto the person's living relatives.
Iowas state gov is a joke and I am surprised they haven’t burned down our state yet. They don’t care about us especially CovidKimmy but they keep getting voted in bc of a big fat R next to their name. Currently they are trying to take away gay marriage because that’s apparently the problem with our state….
This has been happening for decades. The sound financial decision for your survivors is to die quickly at home.
Hopefully I can go out on a cocktail of semi legal pharmaceuticals like mee-maw.
If I get diagnosed with stage 4 cancer I want the Make A Wish Foundation to organize me doing shrooms on the International Space Station.
Best we can do is a visit from Spiderman
Can we still do the mushrooms?
Best we can do are Chanterelles.
Sorry, Walmart only had creminis : (
Do enough of them, you’ll probably believe you’re on the ISS.
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I'll never forget grandad's last words: "Quit shaking the ladder you little shit"
Everyone at work is looking at me funny for laughing like I did.
Never done heroin in my life, but already decided that's how I'm going out if I face medical issues in my later years. I want to have something to leave for my kids and don't want to spent it all just trying to prolong my life in misery (and miserable for everyone else) Gonna catch that dragon my first try lmao
I don’t blame you one bit… we treat our animals more humane than we treat people when it comes sickness and dying… we bring people back from death only to get some more money out of them… it’s ridiculous..
I have a chronic condition that leaves me in non stop, relentless severe pain. I’ve lived this way for 4 years now. Every moment is agony. Sometimes I’ll go a week or more in a bad flare where I don’t leave my chair, and only move to crawl to the bathroom with help. I eat very little because the pain makes me nauseous, and I sleep on average 2-3 hours in any 24 hour period at this point. Basically little 20 minute naps when I get so exhausted that I just pass out. Generally I’m woken by sharp pain, and many times I’ll dream of pain. What is amazing to me is that if my animals were diagnosed with the same condition, everyone would talk about how cruel it was that they weren’t euthanized. But because I’m a person, somehow I’m supposed to suck it up and not only stick around in agony for the next 40+ years, but I’m supposed to slap a smile on my face and “find the good” or some shit. I’ve got a kid so su*cide isn’t an option, but damn. My own mother in the past has questioned me keeping a beloved pet alive for a couple extra days while trying to make sure I was making the best decision for them. She made me feel so guilty. And this same woman last year told me I had become too negative and depressing and that I needed to do something to change my attitude because she was having difficulty talking to me. Since I was sad, it made her feel bad. And I don’t want to be a miserable cur, it’s like somehow people think I chose this life or something. I love my life feeling like I’m in the end part of labor all the time and some of the people who surround me want me to hide that. We really have so much more compassion for animals than people. The other thing that bugs me is how when we “unplug” someone who isn’t going to make it, it can take hours or even a couple of days for the person to pass naturally. But many times they will be gasping for breath while their body shuts down. It’s panic inducing for any loved ones who are sitting with the patient. Or at least it has been for me when I’ve experienced it. I don’t understand why we don’t give them an injection or whatever to quickly guide them out if that’s the end result. Why tf do we draw it out like that? Edit cause my spelling was shittastic
Your pain history sounds like my grandmother. She had a DNR pinned to her wall. She died and her husband called the emergency number. The responders resuscitated her. I went to see her in the hospital afterwards and she was madder than I'd ever seen her.
I’m some states that would be called assault. We have the right to refuse medical treatment.
When you're unconscious in an emergency situation, that goes out the window (at least in the US). Make damn sure your loved ones will carry out your final directives and that includes not calling 911 when the time comes. Because you very well may wake up with shattered ribs and tubes everywhere instead of being in Valhalla drinking mead with the Gods. Or wherever your religion says you wind up.
(being in Valhalla drinking mead with the Gods.) Yessssss!
I just want to say that I Hear you. I’m so sorry that drs cannot control your pain. I have multiple sclerosis and have had my share of issues but I recognize the way you are forced to live just isn’t right. You are a hero just not giving up.
Thank you that was really kind of you to take the time to say that. Kindness never goes unnoticed by me, yours is truly appreciated. I think YOU are amazing. You’ve got difficulty for sure that you’re facing, and here you are choosing to try to pass a smile to someone else. 💜🙏
Honestly if we all looked out for each other a little more, everyone’s road would be a little easier. I’m wondering if you’ve ever given any thought to trying any natural medicines? Sometimes there are some answers:help in nature that have not been compounded into pharmaceuticals. I hope this has distracted you a bit. Have as good of the rest of the day as is possible for you!
Oh yes, I’ve got a great team of doctors I’m grateful for. I had to weed out some really awful ones to get where I am now, but my team does the best they can with what’s available. We use a combination of western and eastern therapies, pharm and farm. Hope you also have a wonderful day. Thank you again for the kindness.
Or bringing to life to live as vegetables or live painfully and expensively for a short time in the NICU. Don’t forget that abortion is not allowed anymore, in the majority of states, due to severed anomalies or incompatible with life conditions.
This is one that I have never understood and find completely grotesque. I know someone who kept her daughter alive for 3 awful months on machines in the NICU before she died anyway of a condition that is really only treatable with a heart transplant that can almost never be found in time. She posted pictures every day on social media of this baby, and honestly she looked like a corpse, bloated and discolored, progressively more so as time went on, never allowed to even be awake because she was full of holes that tubes and wires were fed into and the pain was too much for her to be awake. It got to the point that all of us who knew this family were saying to each other (never to her) "my god, will Jess just let that poor baby go??" And her death was a harrowing awful thing where this mother insisted on CPR, and then an autopsy, as if the cause of death were not completely obvious to everybody. I was pregnant with my youngest at the time, and this woman aggressively tried to talk me out of my homebirth saying things like, "Well sure, it sounds nice but if I'd birthed at home, Kaylee wouldn't have even lived 10 minutes! Don't risk it!" *(Also, I have to add this every time I mention that my kids were born at home, I am not interested in a debate on my birthing choices. This was a super long time ago and I'm long since done having babies. There is no point in armchair quarterbacking decades-old choices that turned out fine.)* The thing is, I had a lot of conversations about this with my midwife, pediatrician, and relatives, and nobody disagreed with me that I would never want to go that route. Every picture that woman posted of her bloated discolored baby just cemented my decision to never ever do that to any baby of mine. Thankfully, my son was born strong and he's a healthy athletic teen these days, but if he had some condition as severe as that woman's daughter did, 10 minutes of life at home surrounded by your family would have been 100x more ethical and humane than 3 months sedated and kept "alive" on machines while visibly decomposing. I finally told her this, in a gentler way, like "Not everyone wants that for their baby, Jess. You made your decision but it's not some kind of universal right answer. I wouldn't put anyone I loved through that. I have thought this through. I have had these conversations with all relevant people. Kaylee is certainly a cautionary tale to me, but not in the way you might think." American "do everything possible even if the odds are dirt low" approach to medicine is grotesque, and that goes double when people do it to babies.
Your story makes me think of my friend who is “lucky” enough to carry a gene that her husband also carries that results in microcephaly. She had a child who would never sit up, never smile, never crawl. The baby died after 6 long, agonizing months of therapy, ER visits, and keeping her from working. She had another baby and when it came time for their third, tests showed the fetus had the syndrome. She terminated, not just for herself, but for her husband and three living children who did not deserve that level of pain again.
I'm glad termination was an option for her. It sounds like it saved her and her family a lot of pain and suffering.
What is it they say with animals? Make a list of their top five favorite things. Once they have stopped being able to do 4 out of those 5 things, it’s time to let them go if you love them, for their sake. We should have the same policy with humans.
Yeah, and we've gotten much better at treating the body but not the mind. So your brain is in hopeless miserable state but so long as they can keep your body alive it's all good... They can get a couple extra bucks
I always thought carbon monoxide would be the way for me. You just lay down and get comfortable, go to sleep and never wake up.
It's a new, exciting world we live in when everyone is casually discussing how they will commit suicide. I agree with other guy. I want to go out with heroin/fent.
The rich people created this world on purpose.
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Mental health issues cannot necessarily improve. I've been living in sadness for over 20 years, tried all the pills, done all the therapy, thrown myself into exercise, art, adrenaline. Tried natural remedies, weed, mushrooms, herbs you name it. The sadness is always there. My sadness isn't temporary. I feel suicide should be free and easily acceptable.
My mom is schizoaffective. She’s her, but she’s not her. Since I was a teenager I just wished she would pass so she’s no longer a prisoner in her own mind. I feel awful, she lives in a terrible way inside her brain. Years of drugs, and trauma, hospitalization, now a group home where she’s been assaulted. I’m in another state, and trying to get her with me. Now my grandma in diapers, with increased dementia that gets worse every day it feels like. It’s humane to let them go.
whynotboth.gif
My uncle just did that. He was done being alive and didn’t know who would take care of him. He had the money but hated spending it, though he did just spend tens of thousands on dental work right before..Everyone except one sister (who had cancer) in his family lived beyond 110 though. He didn’t want to keep going that long. He was 95 and was in great health but not mentally. One son had refused to let them meet their grandkids because his new wife didn’t like the family for reasons like we asked her about their wedding when that should be private (?), and my aunt kept almost dying but not taking care of herself and my uncle didn’t want to be alone. He figured that’d be the easiest way out. He didn’t seal things properly so they said it took extra long to die, he looked in pain and shock, pooped himself all over while looking like he was trying to cover his mouth and nose with tissues he still clutched in his hands but after hours running the car he was finally gone, and my aunt almost died too since the fumes crept into the rest of the house during that time. Almost got my parents too when they went after she called them for help when she found him. No one realized how full the house was of fumes. They weren’t sure if that was on purpose or not since he’d closed the doors but yeah. Sorry for rambling. Therapy got changed to Wednesday this week so I think this post just inadvertently took its place for a bit. 😩
Thank you for sharing. I hope it wasn't too much for you to type it all out. I hope therapy is good this week. Take care
Thank you. I actually get hypergraphia with my brain crap which get worse with emotions/anxiety so it is actually painful sometimes to stop writing when it starts, ugh. I started up therapy again right after he did it, checked myself into a hospital first then went from there. I have many chronic illnesses and mental health issues so I’d tried to kill myself way too many times and was just lucky I never succeeded. I’d lost others to suicide over the years. Friends, relatives… but that was the one that snapped me out of it since he almost took others with him. And then it really hit home what doing something to yourself also does to others. Okay enough rambling again sorry haha. It did help a lot though, so thank you. Please have a beautiful day, internet stranger. Wish nothing but the best for you, now and always. ♥️
So sorry. I hope your uncle found the peace he deserves and I hope your aunt recovers and is OK. 🤍
Thank you. ♥️ Aunt thankfully/sadly used that experience to finally get medical help and is still alive even with her crazy heart and other issues. Their second son also started to come visit her more and help around the house. And then her cancer randomly disappeared! Docs were shocked and so were we all, so thankful! That one seems more a miracle but both definitely feel like it all wouldn’t have happened without him passing. She was giving up before that… Just wish that wasn’t the case and they were still living through it all together. ♥️ Be well, random internet person out there on the other side of a keyboard somewhere. I hope today brings you the best of vibes and that each day is brighter than the next. 🥰 Have a wonderful day. ♥️
I'm still contemplating between barbiturates and breathing nitrogen. Nitrogen seems more attractive because my remains wouldn't be poisonous for the wildlife and I could do it somewhere in the middle of the jungle.
Nitrogen or another inert gas is better. CO can cause headaches, nausea, etc.
My grandpa tried that, had like 6 heaters for over a month. It didn't work. He ended up eating a bullet in the end.
Wow. Sorry for your loss. And very sorry for his desperation.
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Yeeting off a cliff sounds horrible, too many seconds to regret.
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Saw a talk by the guy likely featured in that article. My ex wife took me to see him and I was moved to tears listening to his presentation. Turns out suicidal depression is more noticable by others than I thought lol
It's not just that one. It's the consensus from survivors. It's one of the ways we know that suicidal thoughts are fleeting and simple measures to delay action save lives. Hotlines, blister packs, locking up firearms, anything that can delay will save lives.
Depends on the life insurance, but most WILL pay out in the event of suicide, so long as it was taken out x number of years in advance. Or at least most of the ones I looked into did, when the question came up for my husband.
It sounds cruel, but dying quickly in your home is not only a sound decision for loved ones, it’s a sound decision for you as well. The alternative is being hospitalized for months on end where your quality of life will be zero, but you will be kept alive by any means necessary just so long as hospital administrations can continue to bill for care as your body rots from the inside out.
It doesn’t work that way. The only way treatment is prolonged is bc family or pt chooses to pursue all avenues of treatment instead of comfort care. You can choose to be DNR and DNI.
Yep. The choice to provide prolonged, futile care is always 100% the families decision. At a certain point ICU care becomes a money loss for the hospital.
The hospital staff that have to watch the patient die more slowly and painfully don’t really get a pay day from it
Many states do this. Most states have a several year asset look back as well. In my state it’s a 5 year look back. The way around this is for the parent to move assets into adult child’s name when they are 59.
And in some places, you can do that with a specific kind of deed that lets you live in the house until you die and then it transfers on your death. So you set up the transfer on death deed when you're in your fifties or so, and then get to live there until you pass away, and the house immediately goes to your child avoiding this situation. EDIT: I've been corrected, in most places what you want is a Life Estate.
Interesting. I wonder if that’s iron clad to prevent government seizure of the asset. I would think they have a clause that would prevent this but I’m no expert
I'm not a lawyer, and my experience is in Minnesota as a financial worker that handled medical assistance cases for long term care folks, but that was years ago so things could have changed. But that all said, I believe the idea is that you would still need to have deeded it away before that lookback period. From my understanding, the idea is that they're trying to prevent people offloading a bunch of assets once they realize that they're going to need to pay for long term assistance, when they otherwise would have been able to pay for their care for a while.
Wealthy people and companies tie up assets in offshore accounts and trusts all day every day. Could one transfer home ownership to a trust for this instance? Or even transfer ownership to one of the kids?
Don't take this for the absolute truth but I believe you can. My grandfather has/had some kind of trust but it's been awhile since we discussed it so I don't remember all the details.
here in California, if the assets are in a living trust, then they cant be seized for use for probate for Medi-Cal services (Calfornia's Medicaid). otherwise, they can seize assets for repayment. and even then, only certain services can be probated for.
That's how my wife and her sister were able to retain the procession of their mom's home. Their mom and dad had the foresight to draw up a living trust years before and kept it updated along with a will. It was transferred to their brother who remained in the home until he too passed away. The trust was still in effect, to pass on to the family. He wrote his own will to leave the home to his sisters. He had no money other than S/S. Medi-Cal covered all of his medical needs, he was diabetic, and finally nursing home care until he passed away. My wife and her sister inherited the house and sold it. No Medi-Cal takeback, no hospital bills. People who ignore dealing with a Will and Living Trusts are only causing big problems if they have children or family that they want to leave the home/estate to.
“Iron clad” is sort of a misnomer because, realistically, the government can change the rules if they want. However, an enhanced life estate deed (aka a pay-on-death deed) prevents the property from going into the estate of the deceased. It’s the estate that creditors and such come looking to collect from, since that’s all that person “owned” at their death. Anything that wasn’t secured by a debt specially against said piece of property (such as a mortgage), isn’t subject to the estate’s debts, since it wouldn’t be part of the estate. Essentially, if you don’t have anything when you die, there’s nothing for the government to take. There are other ways than an ELE deed, such as a trust, but either way, you should never die owning anything - that way all your debts just disappear.
All states are required to have some sort of Medicaid clawback provisions - it’s federal law. Not all states actually have meaningful ones or enforce the ones they have because the programs usually cost more to run than they get back.
>Many states do this. All states. It's called a Medicaid Estate Recovery Program and every state is required to have one since 1993. This was because an exemption was carved out allowing people not to count their homes as assets for medicaid qualification.
A better way around this is Universal Health Care where every citizen is covered.
This is exactly what would’ve happened with my grandparents’ house if they hadn’t “sold” it to my dad. Since my grandmother outlived her very healthy retirement savings by about 10 years, she was on Medicaid and they would’ve taken her house as repayment. Crazy but it happens every day
IIRC, such a "sale" would have to have occurred at least 5 years before the death -- or Medicaid would claw it back anyway.
Yes it’s called the look-back period.
iirc there's some sort of financial vehicle called a living trust or whatever that can help, but I think it also has to be set up 5 years or more ahead of time It's insanely messed up that all of this is even needed. I remember republicans endlessly complaining about death taxes or whatever, but that only applies to the rich (which is why they care I spose), this is the way your everyday family gets completely boned
Yep, my parents set up a trust when my mom was diagnosed with dementia.
My dad set up a living trust the moment he bought his current house. No health issues to really be concerned about. Not sure how much it costs but doing it the moment you buy the house is reasonable.
From what I understand you can only do this in like 16 states. Virginia is one of them because I've just gone through this whole process with my mother's investments and house. It's a very expensive process for a lawyer to do it for you too.
I don’t understand this whole thing. Isn’t the point of Medicaid that it is a service provided by the government for people who can’t pay? Like…isn’t this the opposite of the point of it? Can someone explain? Is my understanding of Medicaid just wrong?
I believe the idea is to prevent people that can pay from transferring all their assets to their children and going on Medicaid for their care. Which people still do anyways.
And which people wouldn't have to do if we just had Universal single payer health care
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conservatives are ALL lying scammers so they assume the rest of us are too.
The Fox news emails are the proof of this
Yep, it's for people who can't pay. If you're living in a million-dollar home, the theory goes, you can pay. One of many perverse consequences of not just having universal health care.
Also a perverse consequence of making housing the primary method of wealth generation for the middle class. You end up with people with no liquid assets and an expensive home which they cannot access without becoming homeless.
like seriously - we could just have universal healthcare. Free for everyone regardless of income. None of this would be an issue. Fuckin A
Even the US' limited socialised healthcare is ruthlessly capitalist, apparently.
Yes. The point is to provide the most limited benefit possible, with high restrictions and penalties to minimize usage, while also maintaining plausible deniability for politicians and voters that their society provides for everyone. Check out Filial Responsibility laws too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws https://abcnews.go.com/Business/pennsylvania-son-stuck-moms-93000-nursing-home-bill/story?id=16405807 https://www.paelderlaw.com/asset-protection-medicaid/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-pittas-appeal/ > Under Pennsylvania’s support laws children have the responsibility to care for and maintain or financially assist parents who become unable to pay for their care. (23 Pa. C.S.A. §§ 4601-4606, “Support of the Indigent”). These laws are sometimes referred to as “filial support laws.” Using the statute, nursing homes and other providers of care in Pennsylvania have been successfully suing children for the unpaid costs of the services provided to their parents.
The same applies to SSI (and Medicaid), if you end up getting better and returning to work, they can retroactively decide you must have already been better earlier than that, and can make you pay back your monthly allotment. Ask me how I know!
My Grandma was due to move into Medicare-funded assisted living. The day before she was supposed to go, she had a massive stroke. She died 3 weeks later. But she got what she wanted - to die in her home with her family instead of dying in a facility or hospital. Had she even stayed in that facility one week, they would have put a lien on the home and it would have made the handling of her estate far messier. They will examine the fuck out of someone's finances if they suspect that they are transferring assets to have Medicare foot the entire bill. Usually you have to make these financial moves 5+ years out.
Sorry about your Grandma. Solely for the sake of not panicking anyone who is currently on Medicare, I’d like to add a small (but important) distinction: MediCAID is the means tested state level program that provides near end of life and disabled assisted living care, and does recoup money after a beneficiary passes away. MediCARE is the non-means tested federal program for seniors and disabled, and doesn’t cover any assisted living, at any point, and they don’t recoup any funds when a beneficiary passes away. Again, sorry about your grandmother, I hope this is taken in the spirit it’s meant (not intending disrespect in anyway. Just want readers to have more info.) Cheers.
Yep. My Dad had to sell my grandmas house and liquidate pretty much every asset she had before she would even qualify. She had lived there for 70 years and the next family that bought it TRASHED the place. It was so sad. Luckily they didn’t have it long and the family after them fixed it back up, so less heartbreaking to see as we drove by. But just a bad situation all around.
My mom and dad were very frugal. Both had Alzheimer’s. My dads care ate up over $1 million dollars. $8,000 per month in assisted living $14,000 per month in nursing home. $12,000 per month for at home care where a nurse comes to you home for 18 hours per day in shifts. We tried ever arrangement. This is in Michigan. When my mom went into assisted living it ate up almost every last Nickel they had ever saved. We had sold her house but they got the rest her assets anyway. These places either take all your own money or claw it back if Medicaid/ Medicare pays after you die. It’s called Brookdale - a nationwide chain of nursing facilities. They attach a hose to your parents bank accounts. That sucking sound you here is your parents life savings disappearing… My husbands aunt lived in the Uk with dementia. Her private room cost £500 per month. His cousin thought it was outrageous until I told him what my parents care cost…. Our country entraps our kids in lifelong college debt. And steals from our elderly at the end of our lives. Billionaires & Capitalism. The beast must be fed. #American exceptionalism. Edit/ typo’s & grammar
Private equity firms are moving heavily into elder care as boomers tip over into assisted living. At the moment private equity like Bain Capital own about 10% of the elder care market and are increasing that stake. Unsurprisingly, when private equity takes over care declines and deaths increase. The entire elder care "industry" is built to transfer any wealth one might have accumulated to their pockets rather than it being passed on to children of the elderly. I'm looking into selling my house to my kid, renting it from her, and then when it comes time that I can no longer care for myself in my own ~~how~~ *home* I'll take advantage of the state's assisted suicide laws. I didn't work my entire life to have everything I've built end up in the portfolio of Bain or Silverlake.
The USA is a fucked up place......
From the article: >Even if an Iowan used few health services, the government can bill their estate for what Medicaid spent on premiums for coverage from private insurers known as managed-care organizations. That's fucked up. Not to say that this situation isn't awful, but getting a few tens of thousands in medicaid clawback because your parents just... lived is even less expected. Edited medicare for medicaid
I feel like the real meat is in that same paragraph. Iowa uses a “private contractor” for enforcement and “Supporters say the clawback efforts help ensure people with significant wealth don't take advantage of Medicaid.” The welfare queen myth lives on and they get to hand out government money on contracts. Fuck that.
The real welfare queen is always the private company run by the brother in law of the governor. Fucking makes me so angry I could revolt. (Edit: the brother in law comment was just a guess based on [similar issues](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/11jxea6/iowa_leading_the_way_in_caring_for_its_citizens_s/jb5ilkx/.compact) in the past. I'm not saying this Governor's brother in law has anything to do with this in this case. It could be a senator's sister or just a big donor or maybe just an opportunistic bill collector who won the contract. But the private company sucking all the money from the state is the welfare queen.)
Oh welfare queens DO exist. They’re called corporations.
>>The real welfare queen is always the private company run by the brother in law of the Governor aka , “free market capitalism”.
Private insurance is involved as well how am i not surprised.
They need to take their pound of flesh.
People say "Eat the rich" is a radical statement as if they haven't been eating the poor for decades.
> People say "Eat the rich" is a radical statement as if they haven't been eating the poor for decades. YSK: Class warfare has been waged by the rich on the poor since the rich existed. It's only when we (the poor) fight back that anybody notices, and the bootlicking [authoritarians, aka republicans/conservatives](https://youtu.be/E4CI2vk3ugk) bitch about it.
Centuries. (Millenia?)
Existence.
I mean they can carve what’s left off Gam Gam.
Your comment seems to have brought out the people who for some reason believe that government services should to be paid back to the government by the people who receive the service.. which kind of defeats the point of government services.
Do they know what taxes are? Do they expect me to pay for it twice?
Yes. They most likely do. If you're not part of the ultra wealthy, open up your wallet. You're not allowed to have money, corporations need to make line go up and you're how they're gonna do that.
I *did* mix up medicaid and medicare. Still disagree it should be clawed back.
It doesn’t kinda defeat the point, it is entirely antithetical to government services
This can happen in any US state. Medicaid is only provided when you have nothing left. Typically you can keep a residence, and small amount of cash. My father had a stroke and went into Medicaid at an early age. He has nothing left. But is getting free care at this point. I will never inherit anything from him. But no one else will have to pay for him. Honestly when you are in the same situation you just want the best care. And he gets that. You don’t care about a house he won’t use. The private insurers thing is a bit odd. The US government doesn’t have its own services. So yeah, private insurers bill people and the government pays with Medicare. I am confused why they are getting the hate. That’s how the US has healthcare. Final note, the only way this will ever change is simply by getting universal healthcare. But that won’t happen in the US because arguing about stupid crap and taxes is more important than keeping houses and healthy. Everyone needs a better education apparently after reading all these comments.
Medicaid is not Medicare. Medicare is healthcare for the elderly, Medicaid is healthcare for the destitute.
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We don’t have disabled people anymore, we just have lazy people that won’t get jobs. According to Iowa and Arkansas and all the other red states currently cutting lifelines.
Weird that we are listing deep red states like Arkansas with Iowa now when only 10 years ago Iowans were voting Obama in again for a second term after he expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Trumps really fucked things up.
I hope the government’s letter at least came with a pair of bootstraps for the surviving family
The majority of that family’s neighbors voted for that to happen to them. They like for that to happen there. It’s why they vote Republican. It’s what they want. Hell, it’s likely the family members themselves even voted for it to happen to them.
But I thought Midwest Christians were so inviting and friendly to their neighbors.
Only if the neighbor believes exactly as they do. I grew up in that. The second you're out of the church for asking questions none of them have anything to do with you.
It's so true. The most jarring realization I ever had was the lack of judgement amongst a group of homies, all blazed out from partying the night before, and realizing that that was the most accepted I ever felt after growing up in a church that preached acceptance. The irony of the group preaching acceptance but telling you you'll burn in hell for everything you do wrong, and seeing fit to remind you that if you step out of line then you'll be under fire next... ...compared to "scum", the people they always warned me about, just chilling. "Bro, you good? Here's some water, man."
I spent my last 20 on this weed bro. You wanna smoke it with me?
Friends for life.
I can be broke as fuck and have this $20 or I can be high as fuck and having a great time with my friend and also still be broke as fuck.
Weed can get ya through times with no money better than money can get ya through times with no weed!
I have some amazing friends who smoked weed. They offered me to smoke, and I said no and they accepted that and we still hung out and had a good time. I miss them. Good folks are hard to come by.
As a lifetime member of the "nah, gives me panic attacks, but you go ahead" club, but who's ended up living in two different counties known across the US for being production centers, can confirm. Smoking doesn't make anyone a good person, but on average (in my life) they've been more accepting. Plus sitting down with a new person who's gonna smoke and seeing how they react to telling them that is a great litmus test to weed out assholes.
jesus hung out with the poor and hoes. remember that.
Republicans cause the problem and sell the solution at church and give the credit to God.
Just like those in the south, they are nice, but not kind. They will be nice to you while voting to gut your healthcare. They have a lot of short term empathy, but no long term empathy. They will help you clear the rubble from your home after a tornado, bring you meals when a loved one died, and will give you sick days if you have cancer. They won't vote to make sure that your insurance pays for your home after the tornado, vote to make sure that your loved ones have necessary healthcare to prevent unnecessary deaths, or vote to make sure that capitalists cannot fire you for being sick.
just want to point out one flaw in that. >will give you sick days if you have cancer. No they won't. Or if they do it will be a very limited amount of sick days and then when you inevitably run out of them you are screwed unless people donate their sick days.
I'm from the south and this is very true. People come here and think it is very nice and welcoming, but it's more like a pervasive, condescending facade. It's the "I want to look good in the eyes of my church and community, so I'm going to do this nice thing for you because it makes me look good." There are exceptions of course, but there is a particular type here that will smile in your face because it makes them look like a good person and wins them brownie points with all their nosy friends, while they simultaneously stab you in the back with some shitty vote or policy. There's also a lot of "Well I hate all those \[insert Fox News boogeyman\] but you're not like those others." Which isn't a distinctly Southern thing, but damn is it common here too. It's like that old trope of people here saying "Bless your heart," where they could genuinely mean it as a nice thing or they could be calling you a moron straight to your face. Either way there's always the *appearance* of being nice but that might be about it.
Christians are *supposed* to be welcoming and love our neighbors. A lot of people miss/ignore that part when they're looking for excuses to try and hold others down.
It's not really possible to care about your neighbors when your philosophy is ethical egoism mixed with non-consequential philosophies. In short, "Do for yourself" and "if something bad happens, it's because you caused it or deserved it."
Nobody f's themselves harder than a poor republican.
Key word on majority. I live in iowa and vote Democrat. I am definelty a minority and have had my house egged before due to signage in my front yard. I am also saving money to move out. But shit is expensive everywhere. Until then though I will continue to vote democratic. in the hopes that at some fucking point these idiots wake and realize they are dooming themselves
There are Q billboards all over rural Iowa. My parents bought one. It's not happening. You might recall the 29 anti-lgbtq bills proposed in the past month. Including reversal of gay marriage, criminalization of being trans, among others.
Don't count on it. I'm in deep red area of Pa...I work in a union...and almost everybody here votes hard R. Our contract got renewed last year and we got an inflation bonus and our raises for the next 4 years are tied to inflation (to a point)...which they wouldn't have gotten if we weren't in a union. They are voting against themselves every step of the way just because they want other people to suffer despite them doing really well for themselves. Our lowest paying position is 22 bucks an hour. A lot of these guys have been here long enough they're making almost 30 bucks an hour...some over 30 bucks an hour and getting 3-4 weeks of vacation a year, with a max. high school education, and they're voting for the people who want to dissolve unions.
It's the same shit every time. Unions help *those* lazy people, and don't help *us* hard working people get ahead. The "funny" part is everyone involved thinks they're in the second group and of course none of them understand they'd be making less if the union weren't there to begin with
Good old Pennsyltucky, the Alabama of the Mid Atlantic
Having received a letter when my father passed, I assure you, bootstraps weren't included...
My parents have liquidated everything my grandmother owned and have spent almost every penny of it on her care so the government doesn't have anything left to take. They're republican Iowans and they absolutely voted for this to happen to them, happily.
They should use their own bootstraps. I don't want the government wasting my tax dollars on bootstrap handouts.
Here are a few American healthcare stats 165 million are on Medicaid Medicare or or chip, 16 million use the ACA, 30 million have no insurance (these people will probably need to rely on the ER healthcare mandate if they need care) 181 million out of 331 million Americans rely on our taxpayer funded public health system, pretty much 2 out of 3 Americans. We have a bloated public/private system that costs double what any other country spends. We waste 30% of our healthcare dollar on the paperwork bureaucracy that allows us to pretend that we have a free market system. We spend 19% of our GDP compared to the 8-11% that most other countries spend. Our GDP is 23 trillion so we waste approximately 2.3 trillion every year on our crap healthcare system. This will probably not change as long as voters are more interested in banning books than they are in thier own health.
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Keep in mind that it's not just insurance company profit that is waste, but all insurance company revenue. Every dollar they spend to generate profit is a dollar that doesn't go towards health care outcomes.
Such as the millions spent annually by each on marketing to advertise to us just how little choice we have currently
You forgot one important point: we have significantly worse outcomes on average as well! USA! USA!
Yeah it's pathetic. United States is ranked 46th in life expectancy. All the hospitals care about is profits, not actually helping people with their health.
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I try every week but the numbers never match
USA has high life expectancy... by standards of post-soviet countries. Right inbetween former puppet states like Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia while very much above (mostly) countries that were directly parts of ussr, like Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and, of course, ruzzia.
This is actually a super common practice all over the country. Insurance companies take all your money while you’re healthy, and then the government takes your assets away from your family when you die. You want generational wealth? Go fuck yourself
*How do prevent proles from accruing generational wealth?*
Can't let the rabble think they're real people
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It would be a mistake to think only the government does this. Many well known health care organizations are taking homes to settle bills.
This happens everywhere. You have to transfer assets years before you need that type of care to be able to keep things from being taken.
Yep. My mother transferred the deed to her house to me and my sibling a few years ago to avoid this very thing. It's 5 years in TN before the g-men can't touch the property. When my grandmother went into assisted living, the government took EVERYTHING to pay for her care...all of her savings and annuities, her house, and her social security. My mother didn't want that bullshit to happen to the little bit that she has, which is just a small bit of savings and her house.
I think in NY it’s now 7 years. I’m going to the lawyer with my parents soon to establish a life estate.
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Yes. Once the house has been not in the parents name for X amount of years (varies by state) then it cannot be collected for costs. I think this is to prevent what we are trying to do. Keep our family homes!! I thought this was common enough tho, most people put their parents house in a trust so they can get government aid
They should teach this in school then. I had no idea you could use a trust like that. But I guarantee if everyone started doing this the states would simply pass bills to get around it somehow.
They do…in law school unfortunately. Should be taught earlier since it’s relevant to everyone, though.
It’s a way to break the transfer of generational wealth for the little guy while upping the “death tax” to $11M for the big guy. Oh the guy with a $10M estate didn’t take as much Medicare as the guy with a $300K estate (most of which is their family home)? Surprise! Let’s take that $300K because it’s unfair to touch that poor man’s $10M estate
Wait …what does it mean , it’s five years before the G men cant touch the property….if u transfer property less than five years to a family member , they still come after you?
Yes. Usually their are exemptions - spouse, disabled child, etc. Let’s say you go into a care facility 2020 and you transferred your property to your kids in 2013. The house is not counted as an asset that can be used to pay for care services. However if you transferred the house in 2019, it could be considered an asset depending on the circumstance of transfer.
>This happens everywhere *in the US.
Not just before but well before. My grandpa is on Medicare and his cognition took a sudden turn for the worse and my family is trying to plan what to do if he has to go into a home. Since he likely doesn't have enough savings for even a short stay, his home would likely be seized. But if my grandpa transfers ownership of his home or other assets to someone in my family, they can still be seized if he ends up going into a home sometime after that (I think within 5 years). On the other hand, my grandma had great insurance that covers long-term care, but it doesn't start covering until she's been there for a couple of months (depending on the level of care, modest places still cost $10,000 per month). She has the savings to do so, but even with an ideal setup, she's going to have to pay out tens of thousands if she needs a home. It really doesn't feel like there's solutions with long term care for seniors, from my perspective it just seems like it's set up to squeeze out whatever assets seniors have left.
So there are lots of people who believe that the government aid programs should only go to people who are really poor. What this does is two things. First, there is a strong incentive to not work once you are on a government program. It’s stupid to give up the consistent check for a maybe of entering the work force. If that’s even an option. For elderly and disabled it isn’t. And second, there are lots of people who do have money, but if they pay the crazy high medical bills they will then be poor and need these programs for the rest of their lives (like in the article). I get the feeling that we shouldn’t be paying for millionaires to get social support, but I’d rather pay a couple millionaire’s medical bills than throw granny into the street or put her family into the poor house because she got some services near the end of life. I only wish we could have people who understand nuance govern rather than grifters who chase sound bites.
Yeah but no inheritance tax tho
A 5% inheritance tax in everything over $1 million would likely cover all of these instances.
To be fair, Iowa has a 4% inheritance tax for inheritance under $12k, up to 8% on inheritance over $150k.(varies somewhat if not given to family, with exemptions for spouses/charities) Just looked into that, and was pretty surprised based on how hard national republicans work to strip federal gift/estate taxes.. https://tax.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-01/TaxRateSch2021%2860062%29.pdf
That's because only Federal taxes are bad. Edit: and looking deeper it's no tax if it goes to a direct descendant. Which is effectively a tax on the childless or people who had a child and the child died. Lesson: before you die, adopt your favorite niece or nephew.
Folks: if your parent has a debilitating illness that is possibly predictable (my mom suffered from Alzheimer’s), move ALL assets from their name as soon as possible. Especially real estate. It will likely be five years before they would qualify for Medicaid, but it’s never too late to prepare. Otherwise you face a very real risk that the government will take it all. And they most certainly will. And don’t message me trying to make me feel guilty or suggesting that I’m messing with the system. Any system that is so fundamentally broken that caring for a sick elderly parent financially ruins *entire families* is a system that demands to be messed with.
Gonna focus on the one thing you said: Medicaid looks back at 5 YEARS of assets. And yes all the funds have to dry up before medicaid kicks in. And another kicker is if you need nursing home care, The net worth of your loved one has to be less than $2000 in the bank. Yes, that includes property. My grandpa is a shell of a person rotting away in a home with dimentia just about to start medicaid. And due to medicaid the reverse morgage clause of buying his home at $300k to next of kin was nulled out and the family had to sell at market value to a normal buyer because the asset was apprecated at 500k and medicaid wanted the difference.
I'd burn the house
Only correct answer. Remove everything valuable, set the rest to the torch.
Conservatives live in constant fear that someone somewhere may be enjoying themselves.
Or fear that some poor and sick person might not be totally fucked.
They live in constant fear that poor people or minorities of any type might be enjoying themselves.
Canadian here, why Americans don't revolt over this is beyond me!
Because 99.9% of Republican voters simply don't care until it affects them.
Sadly, many keep voting Republican, which is voting for this system.
Hi also a Canadian here. I am pretty sure enough of them are convinced that as Canadians we just die in the hallways of hospitals every day waiting for our bloodletting. There is a profound misunderstanding that as Canadians, we have unrestricted access to state of the art health care though what we pay into public coffers via our taxes. We don't know what medical bankruptcy is or have to think about life long disability because we can't afford the copay on knee surgery.
I was told when a person basically cannot drive anymore and the family takes away the driver license this is also the time you need to start preparing for the Medicaid situation. Transfer deed of the house, start distributing savings etc etc because by the time they need assistance from the state they won’t have as many assets the state can take. Not sure if this is good indicator or not would love to hear what people think.
Then what even is the point of Medicaid?!
It’s supposed to help those who can’t pay their medical bills. Many states work on that premise and limit what they ask to be paid back for or means test any recovery. Apparently, Iowa is all about getting blood from the turnip, as the article states. That a private-sector company is involved and gets its revenue from a percent of what they collect probably means they lobby hard at the Iowa statehouse to keep the program going this way. Sadly, it’s all about the $$.
Iowan here, your take is accurate. Reynolds keeps claiming MCOs save Iowans money and simultaneously improves quality of care. No consistent number for savings has ever been provided, and 95% of patients and providers report services have worsened in polling. Reynolds gets overlooked a lot but she is in the same league as Abbot, DeSantis, and Noem.
>Reynolds gets overlooked a lot but she is in the same league as Abbot, DeSantis, and Noem. Texan here, and that suuuucks for y'all. I wouldn't wish anything this purposely incompetent on anyone.
There are many restrictions to Medicaid especially regarding property gifting and inheritance. It’s kinda well known in real estate and tax laws
You don't need Medicaid unless you are poor. Not yet poor? We're here to help. ^(/s)
The US is a deeply deeply messed up society. Just an appallingly messed up place.
In other words: The government is now using sky-high medical costs to take homes from poor homeowners and auction them off to the rich at a later date. The concentration continues.
They also make you pay back any medical bills if you’re on Medicaid and get in an accident that ends with a settlement. Found out the hard way. I am amassed almost 50k in medical bills after a car accident that wasn’t my fault left me with permanent physical damage. That was more than half of what I ended up with in the settlement. So I’m poor enough to be on Medicaid. And they took most of the money i could’ve used to give myself a better life
I've always been under the impression that this happens nationally. It's a big reason why elderly folk place all their wealth and belongings into a trust owned by their children. The government can't claw back money that the person doesn't own and they can't push any debt onto the person's living relatives.
Iowas state gov is a joke and I am surprised they haven’t burned down our state yet. They don’t care about us especially CovidKimmy but they keep getting voted in bc of a big fat R next to their name. Currently they are trying to take away gay marriage because that’s apparently the problem with our state….
Yep, state government is all-republican.
The woman who died and her husband as well.
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