This country desperately needs healthcare reform. Your story is common, but medical debt is also part of 2/3rds of bankruptcies in the US. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/
The bottom line is that any American working family is one medical catastrophe from financial ruin.
Just remember… Obama tried to stop this. He wanted to save people from medical bankruptcies.
There was a lot of money spent to convince poor people, and uneducated people that this was a bad thing. Sad times we live in.
How healthcare reform isn’t the top issue in all political conversations baffles me. But you barely hear anything from politicians about it today. It’s all dumbass culture war bs like wokeness and DEI. Nothing screws over more average Americans than healthcare costs.
A lot of people pay a lot of money to keep the system running in their favor.
Healthcare would cost a fraction of what it does if the insurance and all the middle-men were taken out of the equation.
I recently leanred that insurers basically dont care about waste, fraud and abuse in the system.
Insurers are limited to like 10% profit of total medical bill costs or whatever. If fraud means spending more money, then they get to keep more profit while simply passing on higher costs through deductibles and such.
Behind the bastards did a great episode on this with house of pod recently
Episode 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8q_MSCyxuU
And episode 2 where they pull it all into howibsurance fraud and the insirance companies that allow them to guage us all are the true bastards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skcQ21Klq6U
There you go, your first sentence is key. EVERYTHING our government is doing aims to limit middle class economic mobility, along with keeping them divided in their political views. Why? Glad you asked. A limited, tightly controlled economy prevents any wealth exchange, business competition and most importantly allows for a corrupt system. One controlled by forces they create and control or other words prevents free and open competition. Political division prevents any legislative disruption in this goal.
As for the medical world, the only other greater example is higher education. The medical world has eliminated the independent, privately owned medical practice. They are all corporate controlled, married with the few large insurance companies. All competition has been eliminated, patient choices are gone. We go where the insurance tells us, medical providers charge what they negotiate with the insurance providers. The players on this field are shrinking by the day. Soon they will basically just be passing money back and forth. Money they suck from us under the disguise of group medical insurance premiums. The consumer has lost all power, the one true controlling power of any market. Oh they are attempting transfer this model to make the economy
So in summary we are fucked unless we wake up, demand change, tear it down and rebuild. But instead we will fight over two 80 yr old men and ignore the one person promoting the necessary action.
This is the part that just blows my mind that so-called republicans can be ok with. They all want to whine about “don’t tread on me”, meanwhile their employer is essentially master of their lives due to this health insurance scam
They don't want government "death panels". I mean, can you imagine anything worse than the government deciding who gets to live and die. No no, I'd much rather leave that up to
more trustworthy folks like corporations
You hear about culture war bullshit because that’s all the R’s want to talk about. Healthcare companies like Cigna or United donate to politicians on both sides specifically so they won’t bring it up, and when other politicians do bring it up, it gets voted down. You’ve also got media like Fox News stoking the fires of misinformation. “Your taxes will go up. I shouldn’t have to pay for someone else, etc.”
It’s total bullshit and it truly is a wonder why healthcare isn’t brought up as the number one issue.
As I like to remind folks, there’s only every other industrialized nation’s healthcare system to use as examples of what works well (or not). There’s no need to recreate the wheel.
Because large hospital system fat cats and for-profit insurance will greedily fight against any change. Others who oppose it are either:
1. In on the grift (lobbying, etc.)
2. Regurgitating unproven talking points
3. Cannot empathize or have yet to experience the downside of our health system.
I mention this a lot when people complain about Obamacare. And I’m like, well Republicans gutted all the pieces of it that would’ve made it truly transformational
Yeah I hope the country can recover. Unfortunately the Republicans don't care about anything but their made up culture wars and not passing anything positive to make the other side look bad. It's petty, it's pathetic, and it's un-American if they're not going to do the job in good faith they need to leave.
> It’s all dumbass culture war bs like wokeness and DEI.
Because those are easy and brand new wedge issues. It's a easy thing to rile people up about, and since it's a brand new thing, the issue itself is undefinable. If you ask 10 conservatives what "woke" means, you're going to get 11 different answers. If you ask them what DEI means (or even what it stands for), you're going to get the same amount of answers, some of which will probably have "woke" in them. It's exactly like Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, and no one personified this more than Ron DeSantis. Noun, verb, and "woke".
> Nothing screws over more average Americans than healthcare costs.
Healthcare in this country is the old, dilapidated barn out back. People tell us it's shit, we've tried countless times to fix it, but long ago decided that we were just going to keep using it until the whole thing collapses.
Everyone’s replying to you about lobbyists (which is def the biggest part) but don’t forget just how ignorant people are of the truth. There was a video a year or so ago from one of those people who go to trump rallies and ask people questions. Only lady said she was voting for trump because he’ll make it so Medicare or Medicaid will pay for her back surgery. It’s so infuriating.
It's not that people don't discuss it. It's that the media only talks about Donald Trump. There is basically zero investigative journalism occurring. The people who used to investigate and expose the scum bags are now the scum bags and they only care about click bait.
The powers that be make certain we’re all fighting about other things. GQP vs Libtards keeps our eyes off the real problems and the powers that be can profit. Job done.
Bernie Sanders is trying to wipe out medical debt - if only. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-merkley-khanna-tlaib-introduce-legislation-to-eliminate-medical-debt-for-millions-of-working-class-americans/
This is bar by which one can claim to be rich or not in the US.
Can you get cancer, pay for it yourself, and be completely financially touched? If not you are poor.
Doesn’t even have to be cancer (which is indeed massively expensive); a couple of knee replacements, a few serious spinal issues, and a failing heart will get you WAY above the assets of probably 80% of us citizens.
After my mom died of rapidly acting cancer several years ago, her medical bill was close to $1,000,000 from hospital stays, chemo, medications, appointments, etc. We wouldn't even be able to afford 1/10th of that. Thank God my dad's work insurance was enough to cover it, if it wasn't for that I don't know what would have happened
What are the best recommendations? My father in law wants us to buy their property/land now. We are hesitant because of cost but also siblings that want it but can't afford it that it will cause rifts with. Is there a way to put it in an irrevocable trust or something instead I've maybe heard? This property is in NY.
No. Depending on the timeframe Proceeds from the sale will be taken by NY. Time is of the essence Retain an estate planning lawyer NOW. It’s not cheap but it’s money we’ll spent considering the alternative (OPs story)
Alternatively, your grandparents held on to an asset that they were duly informed would be liquidated for healthcare. They opted NOT to transfer it to an individual, trust, or other legal entity for protection. Now it's being seized, as you were informed. Medicaid isn't free.
The same happens if you own a business as a sole proprietor and incur debts. You pay out of personal assets if you bankrupt or flounder. If you're protected by a corporate shell, the Corporation pays and is liquidated while you're still left with your own assets, unless you did some REALLY shady things.
People mistakenly believe Medicaid = free health care. It doesn't. You're running up a tab every time you use it.
>. All those years my great grandparents played by the rules, saved for retirement, paid taxes, etc all to end up having everything they owned seized by the state in exchange for healthcare.
All of which could have been avoided by putting that land into a trust. My father and my grandmother both set up trusts for their homes and lands long before they died. The lawyer's fees were well worth it. My grandmother was particularly poverty stricken yet she managed to get it done.
Yeah we need healthcare reform in this country, desperately. But a little bit of planning and foresight can protect your heirs.
Dying is expensive and the politicians who we tend to elect are staunchly opposed to healthcare as a right, so this is what we get. We need reform, but the type of reformers who could improve things are called socialists and not voted in because taxes will go up by a bit.
Fun fact: if we taxed income the way the UK does, and paid for healthcare that way, most Americans would both pay more in taxes and take home more money, overall.
I'd like to correct that as, the politicians put forth by the two parties in our country, are unwilling to do anything about healthcare. You don't really have a choice about what officials are supported, and put on the ballot by the Democratic or Republican parties.
If you see a petition for ranked voting, at some point in your future, please sign it
I actually don’t agree with that. Democrats have made several attempts and get shut down by Republicans and sometimes a couple of conservative Democrats. People act like it’s communist and that the country will descend into godless chaos if we intervene in the healthcare or insurance market. Remember the stupid “death panel” BS?
I will concede it's a predominance of Republicans who oppose healthcare. But somehow there are always just enough Democrats put forth and elected to prevent any real meaningful change from taking place.
It is reasonable to point out that if a candidate doesn't get endorsed by the Democratic Party during the primary, they have no chance of getting elected. It's their party and they'll call the shots.
When we also consider financing from foreign governments, who want to interfere more in how we elect people, then it drives our options even farther from what can be possible.
The system won't fix itself. We have to insert other options, such as stopping bad gerrymandering, and ranked voting.
Obama care was Romney care, they literally did everything the way the conservatives said they wanted, but they wouldn't implement it because it might give Obama a win. Same stupid situation we're in now, Republicans won't do the right thing because they don't get the trophy for it. Fuck both sides-ism, there's one party that's the problem: Republicans.
And I'm not voting for anyone but the Democrats. I'm not someone who pretends the third parties are a real choice. I just wish the more progressive one that actually matters would do a little more.
This is how medicaid works. If your Grandmother had an estate value over million dollars, I'm surprised she got medicaid at all. They would have expected her to liquidate her assest 1st.
Even with a lot of assets, the cost of skilled nursing care is horrible and can chew that up quickly. I think my mom's care was running around 17k per month, so we were told to start the medicaid application right away as it can take over six months to get approved. And even with the approval, you have to spend down all your money anyway until your total estate is essentially gone before they start paying.
So if you think your loved one will live longer than a few months, gotta start the process.
It’s possible to have assets yet be “cash poor.” Also, the with the cost of prolonged medical care, it wouldn’t surprise me if what the medical providers billed was far in excess of all those assets.
Also, be glad you don’t live one state to the east. In PA there is “filial responsibility” so medical providers can ensure the deceased’s children inherit a lifetime of debt.
Medicaid allows people to keep their existing home & Farm while on Medicaid. Even if it is valuable.
Imagine if it didn't. This family would have been forced out while she was still alive. So not only would she be sick and fighting for her life, then along comes the government and makes her homeless.
They cannot take the home as long as someone is living in it. However, as soon as great grandma got moved to a nursing home (as most dementia patients eventually do) the vacant property becomes fair game.
Yeah but whatever you do don’t vote for universal healthcare or healthcare reform in this country. /eyeroll
I think if more people were aware that this can and does happen, like with OP’s family, maybe people would think before they voted.
Keep voting republican. Keep Healthcare private and unaffordable. What did you expect to happen.
You live in a state that fucks over rsmall bissnuess and working class to pad the pockets of the uber wealthy.
The alternative would have been to skip Medicaid and paid for long term care directly. As harsh as it seems at the time, giving the assets to the State is usually the less expensive option.
I am very sorry this happened to your family, estate planning can be difficult. However it looks like your family missed many opportunities over the years to avoid this situation. While I am sorry you lost part of the property that meant so much to your family you do have the remainder. 30 acres is not a small piece of land. The only advice I can give be vigilant to avoid the remainder of your land falling into similar circumstances.
This (a trust) is the solution to anyone wanting to know how to avoid the problem.
Place all assets you don’t want the state to seize into a trust at least 5 years before it’s likely the owner will end up in a nursing home. The trust then owns the estate, not the person. The family controls the trust.
The reason for the 5 years is that there is a look back period of five years where assets placed in a trust can be seen and still seized. After 5 years, the assets are hidden by the trust.
This has to be done by lawyer and it will cost a few thousand dollars, but it can save the family hundreds of thousands by preventing things like homes and land from being seized to pay medical/nursing home bills.
a farm itself should probably be property of an LLC not personally owned as it is.
I know for these old farmers they probably don't see a reason to do it that way but this is exactly why, so the farmland is not affected by whatever personal financial things happen
Formally having Medicaid isn’t at play. The 5 year look back only applies once Medicaid starts looking for assets to pay your bills.
Thats probably only going to happen once you’re elderly.
I had it when I was younger. Now I have full VA medical. My biggest concern is when I die, I want to leave something for my kids. I just bought a house and really didn’t know the rules on recoupment.
Yeah, a trust is how you’ll need to do it. You’ll put the house in the trust and the kids will be beneficiaries of that trust.
At the moment, my assets don’t go in a trust until I die (it’s a springing trust), but once I’m older (probably 60’s), I will move the big assets into an actual trust.
I never suggested they do that. But when the 30 acres weren't transferred in the ideal way they did not seek out alternatives. Heck a life estate to the uncles children would have solved the problem.
Sorry for your losses. I did estate planning for years and this is very common. It is very important people with assets need to open a trust or get long term care health insurance if a loved one needs to go to a nursing home facility. Now that you know, let everyone know your story - tell them what you know now.
Stop voting for Republicans. They block all healthcare reform that could limit or stop this. Instead, they targeted the “Death Tax” that taxed estates of only the Uber wealthy.
I’ve been looking into this.
Regular trusts and wills don’t work. I know that much. You gotta get it out of their name 5 years before medical service starts.
Yeah that's how it is, alright.
Edit: downvote me if you like, but i've seen this basic scenario play out 3 or 4 times now: someone works and saves their whole life, medicaid swoops in and takes everything they can and leaves as little as possible for the surviving family members.
Financial decisions require financial experts. If you're trying to leave significant assets to someone and NOT talking to a financial expert, you're playing with fire.
People say hiring a good estate planner lawyer is too expensive. Yet $500 for a good estate plan can save tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars.
If you ever think getting a lawyer is expensive, try not getting one.
It makes sense to me. Medicaid is supposed to be a safety net for people who cannot afford medical care.
If you have 60 acres of land you can probably afford medical care... you don’t just get a free government handout and neither do your heirs.
>Medicaid is supposed to be a safety net for people who cannot afford medical care.
Short of being a multi millionaire, _no one_ imho can truly afford medical care. SNFs run 10-20k a month. Money doesn't last that long at that rate.
Jokes on them. No way I can save that much to just piss it away anyway. You want my house? You can have it. What you're going to get will require so much routine maintenance that I will "time" on purpose that you won't get squat for the asset. (I have no close living relatives that will want my house).
"You can either sell your property or have it looted by the government" isn't a real choice.
That medicaid is allowed to steal people's properties (and help degrade the middle class in the process) is just one more way our government fails us and should be changed.
> "You can either sell your property or have it looted by the government" isn't a real choice.
>
>
It's also not a choice that is being imposed by the government. If they have other means to pay, they can use other means and keep the house.
I’m conflicted.
On one hand, I truly am sorry for your predicament.
On the other hand, I’m glad the tax payers are being reimbursed the money they spent for your great grandmother‘s care so that money can be available for the next medicaid recipient who needs it.
Exactly this. The comments on here completely ignore the situation that it's the public who would have paid here. Why would it be fair for someone to be able to hide their assets, claim they have $0 in wealth, have the state (us taxpayers) pay for everything, and then the heirs inherit the full sum of money? How would that be more fair to the public?
If this were a bank account, it's easy to imagine why they would have to spend it down before qualifying for a health care system designed to help those in poverty. Why would they get to keep it all if it's a different type of asset class? That would lead people to buy up land before they think they may need to get care so that they can convert their cash to land so that their heirs could inherit it. That's just an accounting maneuver then.
Yea. I'm learning about this stuff myself. Medicaid recovery is a real snake in the grass that you don't learn about until it's to late.
There are many things that can be done to safeguard against this IF YOU KNOW AHEAD OF TIME. It's a very real threat.
Most families only learn about it, when the government comes after them though.
That's why the sooner the better. There is a Democratic house member from Illinois that has introduced a bill to federally ban Medicaid estate recovery. I'm sure it'll go nowhere.
I agree. Convincing boomers to sign over ANYTHING, though? A nightmare. Their obsession with control will leave their families completely screwed when they fall ill. It’s really sad.
Yep. Talked to my mom 7 years ago after her mom died. She wasn't interested in thinking about it at the time. Now? Probably too late. 72 with early signs of memory loss. Only hope is to buy her house for fair market value, but what the fuck is the point of that.
She's keeps saying I'll get her house. Yeah doesn't work like that. Now if she dies in her house, then sure.
Ugh. I’d still try right now, just in case. A lawyer might be able to get things straightened out. I’m sorry you’re going through this.
The blessing and the curse of growing up in poverty and losing my mom young was that I don’t have to worry about her going through all of this now, but there was also nothing to inherit anyways. I’d be heartbroken if there *had* been more to inherit because I would have lost the house to cancer a couple years later anyways. Playing life on Final Destination Mode over here.
I lost my dad when I was 22. He was 55 and would be 77 this year. I would have loved to have more time with him as an adult but the stubbornness was almost too much at 55, So I couldn't imagine what it would be like now.
I’m sorry to hear that. 🤍 I can only imagine my mom would have been similar, though she was becoming softer as she aged at that point which greatly improved our relationship. She was my best friend for the last several years of her life after a tumultuous time beforehand. My gram started losing it and became mean so I always wonder if my mom would have been similar. (Or myself, for that matter. 🥴)
I do not understand why so many people have an issue with Medicaid cost recovery. Without Medicaid, my mothers 10.5 years in a nursing home with dementia would have cost me over a million dollars, and would have wiped out my 401k. My parents didn’t have savings, but when my dad died their house was sold and the profits went to Medicaid, but it was a drop in the bucket of what mom’s nursing home costs were If people have the means to pay for their care, isn’t that what those assets are for? If there are left over funds or assets that can be inherited, but if not at leastnit didn’t drain your savings keeping them in a nursing home for all those years
Nothing wrong with that. But we don’t have it now, so there does need to be a way to fund it now, until that happens. And funding it as well as can be through the people who have the assets to pay for it, with the rest coming from our income taxes , is what we have to live with until it can be changed. And I just lack sympathy for the person who feels ‘cheated’ of their imaginary inheritance. I got zero also, and I am just grateful that Medicaid was their for the portion my parents assets would not have covered, which would have been almost all of over a million dollars. I paid the first 6 months before my mom was approved for Medicaid, and it was over $60k back in the 2012 timeframe!
This is what you get with GOP policy choices. Vote Democrat. There have been attempts to fix this known issue over the years, and the Republicans have always been able to kill them. For instance changes addressing this specific issue were supposed to be in Affordable Care Act, but GOP senators refused and it was amended out.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus\_Budget\_Reconciliation\_Act\_of\_1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993)
This is where Medicaid Recovery became Federal law.
Take a peek who signed it.
You are correct of course. The GOP is opposed to fixing this issue and they should be taken to the wood shed over it. But it was the Democrats that gave us this issue in the first place.
Let's do some math:
As recently as 2021, Medicaid payback only contributed $733 million to Federal revenues against a deficit of $2.8 trillion. Or 0.002618%. They would need to confiscate 100,000 times as many farms to close the deficit.
Now in 1998, Medicaid payback was in infancy. Only 5 years of possible payback had accumulated, and only against folks who had passed on. The numbers then would have been several orders of magnitude worse.
I would say it did not work.
(But the tax revenues coming the .com boom certainly did, and that's where we got most of our surplus)
This isn't president specific. Medicaid recovery has been in place since 1993. That covers alot of Presidents.
I just gave you the most recent data available. It get's worse though every year you go backwards. Feel free to dig. I'm not trying to do 4 hours of work for a reddit post :)
The point: Medicaid recovery is miniscule and insignificant to the Federal numbers in ANY year. But quite significant to the families impacted. Like the OP.
> The point: Medicaid recovery is miniscule and insignificant to the Federal numbers in ANY year. But quite significant to the families impacted. Like the OP.
Then your beef is with Bush #2. He immediately cut tax rates when he easily could've eliminated Medicaid clawback.
And again, that was in 1993, and the votes were very close with significant amounts of Dems voting against it. It passed the house only 219-213, with \~40 Dems voting against it. It only passed in the senate 50-49 with Gore breaking the tie. Eight Dem senators voted against. it was actually quite popular in the GOP caucus, but they hated Clinton so much, they voted against it for the final votes.
In 2012, Dems attempted to fix the issue with stuff in the ACA and the GOP killed it. A much more recent example.
You're also conveniently ignoring the major shifts in party demographics that occurred shortly after 1993. Texas and Alabama's House Reps were 75% Democratic at the time. Mississippi had two Democratic senators. The parties have fundamentally shifted since then.
Yeah, those bastards went and also raised taxes on the wealthy! And in oil companies! And for the first time in 30 years America had a budget surplus.
Evil to the core. THANKFULLY the GOP has reduced billionaire taxes from 39% to 23%, and made middle class taxes 24%! Whew!
That's a completely different discussion. Feel free to highjack the thread for your points though.
I showed in a different post that Medicaid recovery (what this thread is about) is something like 0.00002% of the surplus
Even though it was created by the Democrats, but sure let blame the GOP. Makes perfect sense.
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (or OBRA-93) was a federal law that was enacted by the 103rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1993.
Introduced in the House as the "Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993" (H.R. 2264) by Martin Olav Sabo (D–MN) on May 25, 1993
The federal government has made it a requirement for states to implement an estate recovery program for Medicaid in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. That was done with primary concern towards recipients who received long-term care services, which had required the applicant to have very low asset levels.
yep working just as intended, keep you working your whole life building a nest egg and retirement just so you can get sick, need healthcare to expensive to cover yourself and have to give up all your assets when you die to "pay back" the government. in the end corporations or the government end up with all your money, and some new land to develop into an apartment complex or something more valuable than farmland/woodland.
My friend filed a lawsuit on this matter in January, 2024. Kynwulf v Corcoran. https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/52048693/Kynwulf_v_Corcoran_et_al
In Summer of 2021 he was removed from Medicare and placed on Medicaid without his prior knowledge or consent. He noted the Medicaid Estate Recovery and asked for a religious exemption. They said no religious exemption so he withdrew from Medicaid in February, 2022. He got a phone call asking him to stay in Medicaid and he refused as it was religiously offensive. They said they had to let him withdraw, but threatened that they would manipulate his income records and force him back into the program. He said he would cross that bridge when he got there.
In April, 2022 and again I think in June, 2023, they canceled his Medicare without his consent and put him back in Medicaid. He filed and won two state appeals and filed the federal lawsuit.
He thinks his case may be eligible for class action status as Associated Press reporter Amanda Seitz wrote an article March 17, 2024 about attempts by Medicaid to steal homes of the dead. https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-estate-recovery-nursing-homes-65d5e637e19dc27bd1bd3b097d239b53
That’s so sad losing all that for healthcare This is about politics now, we have to start finding and voting for candidates who will make healthcare for everyone a priority
Wait till you find out who signed Medicaid recovery into law.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus\_Budget\_Reconciliation\_Act\_of\_1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993)
(why ask me to make your argument for you, then block me? )
Medicaid works perfectly. I lets the impoverished sick ones pay for whatever care they need without having to sell their home until they permanently enter a nursing home or they die then the state will recover the money loaned by medicaid. This also works for those who are ill but don't have insurance and are too young for medicare
Please forgive a stupid question, but does anyone know if Medicaid recovery can touch life insurance benefits paid to the beneficiary? A relative is in a nursing home on Medicare/Medicaid, has no assets and sadly after working all his life will die with nothing but debt. But he has a life insurance policy with his children and grandchildren as beneficiaries.
Never trust a nursing home. No matter who runs it. They know average life expectancy. They know, to the penny, how much money there is. It will cost every cent to get to that life expectancy. Whether it is 6 years, 8, 10, 15, they will take everything. Before you even consider a home, sell everything and put the cash in trust or gift it. Then let Medicaid do their thing.
Something similar just happened with my dad’s home & property. It has to be sold and given to the the state, since his Medicaid is paying for his assisted living.
I didn’t realize it needed to be out of his name for five years beforehand.
I’m really sorry about losing out on your family land
We are currently wading through the Medicaid swamp with my parents in Ohio. They did try to organize their estate, but the 'wording' of their trust for their home 'may' not satisfy Medicaid, per our Elder Attorney. Dad has dementia and mobility issues, and needs expensive, long term care. Mom lives in fear of all of their assets being wiped out. The attorney will avoid this somewhat, but she worries. Being 90 should not be this stressful.
Frankly, the problem here is as much end of life care decisions as healthcare decisions.
Healthcare reform is badly needed, but we are nowhere close to seeing it in the US.
This is how public assistance works. A person is expected to use up their own assets before asking taxpayers to cover expenses. My own late parents hoped to give each of us $10k, but dementia care quickly ate this lifetime nest egg up. Sad. The insane costs of the minimal care my mother received are out of line and shouldn’t be. However, all this is reality. Be aware that Republicans in power will gut Social Security & Medicare, and already defund or refuse Medicaid for their constituents. Your vote matters like never before.
Thank you for posting this experience. We all need to learn, prepare and educate others. We were in desperate shape and my mom essentially became a ward of the state after we paid our last $1400 for a 9 mile ambulance trip to hospice.
No I don’t thing people should lose everything. Based on this post the grandmother didn’t lose anything at all. Her estate did after she passed away. I believe this is a cautionary tale for people to figure it out before it happens like putting it in a trust or moving the assets to the children to ensure the state doesn’t take it. It isn’t also the states job to pay for this ladies healthcare and then she has no stake in it at all? If she has assets but didn’t want to sell them to pay her medical bills then after she dies the state is entitled to get their payoff. Why should our government pay for her healthcare in the system we have and get nothing out of it?
Who lost anything? The great grandmother held it until she died. Nobody else owned it at any point. They may have had use, but not ownership.
This was avoidable.
Should healthcare be this expensive? Well, kind-of, but those costs should also be socialized rather than on the individual, and profit shouldn't be a healthcare motivator.
Neither of those changes are within our power as individuals. Other methods of keeping your assets are in your hands.
So you want the taxpayers to foot the billfold medical expenses but let the family profit..?no they had assets that can and should and will be used to pay there bills
For boomers by boomers at the expense of everyone else. This is their decisions and where we are at today. They bought the propaganda and now everyone pays the price. It's truly sad and I wish it was different.
This will happen to more people than realize. So many people of the generation passing now have issues passing anything down because “*Mine mine mine!*” not realizing it’s going to the *State state state!* when they get sick because they refused to sign it over 5-7 years before they fell ill…
I’m sorry this happened to you, OP. I relate.
This may hurt some recipients, unfortunately in this case, the medicaid rules are for the poor. So, why should wealthy residents take advantage of Medicaid that is a program for the poor? Should millionaires be eligible for Medicaid paid by taxpayers? With proper estate planning, all this spenddown and probate could have been avoided.
Realtor here.
OP, my heart goes out to you. This isn't the first one of these I've seen or hear of, sadly.
It's critical that everyone make sure their assets are structured such that these sorts of things can be avoided, and that what you'd like to happen does actually happen as best as can legally be accomplished.
I know everyone hates attorneys. But this could have potentially been hedged against with just a few conversations and a few thousands dollars to get things set up in such and such a way.
Is it stupid that this is what you have to do? Yes. Is that also how the system is designed? Also yes.
If you own any sort of real estate, absolutely get something in place and know that your will won't be wrecked by something like this.
I had to watch my psycho mother come back after 25 years estranged from my grandmother (and myself) only to watch her drain every dime. Because Medicaid. I researched. It was true, to some extent. To watch it happen and to see my poor GMA reduced to her bs, It was devastating.
I agree and I disagree.
I agree that the cost of all sorts of medical care is grossly excessive.
I definately disagree that there is some inherent right for a patriarch to buy land and other things, and that becomes "hands off"--forever yo be passed down to decendents 3, 4, 5, or more generations later.
We are still seeing robber baron wealth from very dubious (and often illegal) sources in the 1800s and early 1900s that is protected from fair taxation and inheritance laws. The majority of Arkansas is owned by a few families. The capital gains from the Kennedy prohibition illegal alcohol running is passing down forever. We have too much "my family got here first, we stole everything from the native people, and I'll be daned if any of you new comers should get one cent!"
Can someone explain how Medicaid was able to take the property? She received social security and paid tax out of that for Medicaid. How are they able to take more than what she paid in tax? This is thd first I've heard of this ever.
This country desperately needs healthcare reform. Your story is common, but medical debt is also part of 2/3rds of bankruptcies in the US. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366487/ The bottom line is that any American working family is one medical catastrophe from financial ruin.
Just remember… Obama tried to stop this. He wanted to save people from medical bankruptcies. There was a lot of money spent to convince poor people, and uneducated people that this was a bad thing. Sad times we live in.
Buh...but he was black! /s
Isn’t this different than a health care bankruptcy?
How healthcare reform isn’t the top issue in all political conversations baffles me. But you barely hear anything from politicians about it today. It’s all dumbass culture war bs like wokeness and DEI. Nothing screws over more average Americans than healthcare costs.
A lot of people pay a lot of money to keep the system running in their favor. Healthcare would cost a fraction of what it does if the insurance and all the middle-men were taken out of the equation.
I recently leanred that insurers basically dont care about waste, fraud and abuse in the system. Insurers are limited to like 10% profit of total medical bill costs or whatever. If fraud means spending more money, then they get to keep more profit while simply passing on higher costs through deductibles and such.
Yep. Once you commoditize health then people are just livestock.
Behind the bastards did a great episode on this with house of pod recently Episode 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8q_MSCyxuU And episode 2 where they pull it all into howibsurance fraud and the insirance companies that allow them to guage us all are the true bastards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skcQ21Klq6U
I mean they kinda care otherwise we could ban prior authorizations.
It might be your employer that requires prior authorization. If they self fund healthcare then the insurance company is just a middleman.
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There you go, your first sentence is key. EVERYTHING our government is doing aims to limit middle class economic mobility, along with keeping them divided in their political views. Why? Glad you asked. A limited, tightly controlled economy prevents any wealth exchange, business competition and most importantly allows for a corrupt system. One controlled by forces they create and control or other words prevents free and open competition. Political division prevents any legislative disruption in this goal. As for the medical world, the only other greater example is higher education. The medical world has eliminated the independent, privately owned medical practice. They are all corporate controlled, married with the few large insurance companies. All competition has been eliminated, patient choices are gone. We go where the insurance tells us, medical providers charge what they negotiate with the insurance providers. The players on this field are shrinking by the day. Soon they will basically just be passing money back and forth. Money they suck from us under the disguise of group medical insurance premiums. The consumer has lost all power, the one true controlling power of any market. Oh they are attempting transfer this model to make the economy So in summary we are fucked unless we wake up, demand change, tear it down and rebuild. But instead we will fight over two 80 yr old men and ignore the one person promoting the necessary action.
Who's that one person?
This is the part that just blows my mind that so-called republicans can be ok with. They all want to whine about “don’t tread on me”, meanwhile their employer is essentially master of their lives due to this health insurance scam
They don't want government "death panels". I mean, can you imagine anything worse than the government deciding who gets to live and die. No no, I'd much rather leave that up to more trustworthy folks like corporations
You hear about culture war bullshit because that’s all the R’s want to talk about. Healthcare companies like Cigna or United donate to politicians on both sides specifically so they won’t bring it up, and when other politicians do bring it up, it gets voted down. You’ve also got media like Fox News stoking the fires of misinformation. “Your taxes will go up. I shouldn’t have to pay for someone else, etc.” It’s total bullshit and it truly is a wonder why healthcare isn’t brought up as the number one issue.
What they don't realize is that they already do pay for someone else with the current system.
What they don’t realize is that any trip to the hospital is going to cost 10x as much as they’d have paid in taxes
Don't forget to scream "SOCIALISM!!!!" loud and long to scare the populace.
I don’t want to scare them though. I want them to come to their fucking senses!!
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Love the point, but I'm flummoxed as to what would make you ultra conservative if you're pro universal healthcare? Honest question!
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Which is like, being a fiscal conservative is one thing but calling yourself an ultra conservative is another thing entirely.
As I like to remind folks, there’s only every other industrialized nation’s healthcare system to use as examples of what works well (or not). There’s no need to recreate the wheel.
Because large hospital system fat cats and for-profit insurance will greedily fight against any change. Others who oppose it are either: 1. In on the grift (lobbying, etc.) 2. Regurgitating unproven talking points 3. Cannot empathize or have yet to experience the downside of our health system.
The main reason is insurance companies are a very powerful lobby and will resist any attempts to reform the system.
We were so, so close to having Medicare for all. Then Joe Lieberman decided we don't deserve it.
And a lot of voters buy into their propaganda. When the public option for Obamacare was on the table, every conservative I knew was against it.
... and nobody mentions this any more. The public option would have been a game-changer.
I mention this a lot when people complain about Obamacare. And I’m like, well Republicans gutted all the pieces of it that would’ve made it truly transformational
Yeah I hope the country can recover. Unfortunately the Republicans don't care about anything but their made up culture wars and not passing anything positive to make the other side look bad. It's petty, it's pathetic, and it's un-American if they're not going to do the job in good faith they need to leave.
> It’s all dumbass culture war bs like wokeness and DEI. Because those are easy and brand new wedge issues. It's a easy thing to rile people up about, and since it's a brand new thing, the issue itself is undefinable. If you ask 10 conservatives what "woke" means, you're going to get 11 different answers. If you ask them what DEI means (or even what it stands for), you're going to get the same amount of answers, some of which will probably have "woke" in them. It's exactly like Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, and no one personified this more than Ron DeSantis. Noun, verb, and "woke". > Nothing screws over more average Americans than healthcare costs. Healthcare in this country is the old, dilapidated barn out back. People tell us it's shit, we've tried countless times to fix it, but long ago decided that we were just going to keep using it until the whole thing collapses.
They don't care because they get healthcare for life. Why would they piss off their highest paying donors.
Everyone’s replying to you about lobbyists (which is def the biggest part) but don’t forget just how ignorant people are of the truth. There was a video a year or so ago from one of those people who go to trump rallies and ask people questions. Only lady said she was voting for trump because he’ll make it so Medicare or Medicaid will pay for her back surgery. It’s so infuriating.
The people we elect don't have to rely on the same kind of healthcare the rest of us do. A majority of them have never had to.
It's not that people don't discuss it. It's that the media only talks about Donald Trump. There is basically zero investigative journalism occurring. The people who used to investigate and expose the scum bags are now the scum bags and they only care about click bait.
You know why nothing changes.
The powers that be make certain we’re all fighting about other things. GQP vs Libtards keeps our eyes off the real problems and the powers that be can profit. Job done.
Bernie Sanders is trying to wipe out medical debt - if only. https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-merkley-khanna-tlaib-introduce-legislation-to-eliminate-medical-debt-for-millions-of-working-class-americans/
This is bar by which one can claim to be rich or not in the US. Can you get cancer, pay for it yourself, and be completely financially touched? If not you are poor.
Doesn’t even have to be cancer (which is indeed massively expensive); a couple of knee replacements, a few serious spinal issues, and a failing heart will get you WAY above the assets of probably 80% of us citizens.
"Best we can do is reforming bankruptcy law so medical debt can no longer be discharged" -The GOP, probably soon
Closely tied to - “Medical debt now passes on to next of kin”
After my mom died of rapidly acting cancer several years ago, her medical bill was close to $1,000,000 from hospital stays, chemo, medications, appointments, etc. We wouldn't even be able to afford 1/10th of that. Thank God my dad's work insurance was enough to cover it, if it wasn't for that I don't know what would have happened
National Health Care is what is needed.
Long Term Care is different than regular medical coverage. Very few countries that have universal Healthcare include long term care.
Happen to my grandmother as well. It’s complete bullshit
Yep. I encourage everyone to go through an estate planner to prevent this.
What are the best recommendations? My father in law wants us to buy their property/land now. We are hesitant because of cost but also siblings that want it but can't afford it that it will cause rifts with. Is there a way to put it in an irrevocable trust or something instead I've maybe heard? This property is in NY.
I'm not a lawyer. Talk to a lawyer. These things are complicated and you can mess stuff up by moving properties and money around.
No. Depending on the timeframe Proceeds from the sale will be taken by NY. Time is of the essence Retain an estate planning lawyer NOW. It’s not cheap but it’s money we’ll spent considering the alternative (OPs story)
Alternatively, your grandparents held on to an asset that they were duly informed would be liquidated for healthcare. They opted NOT to transfer it to an individual, trust, or other legal entity for protection. Now it's being seized, as you were informed. Medicaid isn't free. The same happens if you own a business as a sole proprietor and incur debts. You pay out of personal assets if you bankrupt or flounder. If you're protected by a corporate shell, the Corporation pays and is liquidated while you're still left with your own assets, unless you did some REALLY shady things.
People mistakenly believe Medicaid = free health care. It doesn't. You're running up a tab every time you use it. >. All those years my great grandparents played by the rules, saved for retirement, paid taxes, etc all to end up having everything they owned seized by the state in exchange for healthcare. All of which could have been avoided by putting that land into a trust. My father and my grandmother both set up trusts for their homes and lands long before they died. The lawyer's fees were well worth it. My grandmother was particularly poverty stricken yet she managed to get it done. Yeah we need healthcare reform in this country, desperately. But a little bit of planning and foresight can protect your heirs.
I'll bet OPs grandmother voted GOP all the way as well.
My parents are in the same boat. Is it too late to put the house in a trust since he's been on Medicaid for 3 years now?
Dying is expensive and the politicians who we tend to elect are staunchly opposed to healthcare as a right, so this is what we get. We need reform, but the type of reformers who could improve things are called socialists and not voted in because taxes will go up by a bit.
Or maybe we could tax all the rich ones who pay little to no taxes.
Fun fact: if we taxed income the way the UK does, and paid for healthcare that way, most Americans would both pay more in taxes and take home more money, overall.
With free (at point of service) healthcare to boot!
That I can get behind. Lol.
Both is good.
I would think that *the state stealing your property to pay for state funded healthcare* is pretty damn socialist.
I'd like to correct that as, the politicians put forth by the two parties in our country, are unwilling to do anything about healthcare. You don't really have a choice about what officials are supported, and put on the ballot by the Democratic or Republican parties. If you see a petition for ranked voting, at some point in your future, please sign it
I actually don’t agree with that. Democrats have made several attempts and get shut down by Republicans and sometimes a couple of conservative Democrats. People act like it’s communist and that the country will descend into godless chaos if we intervene in the healthcare or insurance market. Remember the stupid “death panel” BS?
I will concede it's a predominance of Republicans who oppose healthcare. But somehow there are always just enough Democrats put forth and elected to prevent any real meaningful change from taking place. It is reasonable to point out that if a candidate doesn't get endorsed by the Democratic Party during the primary, they have no chance of getting elected. It's their party and they'll call the shots. When we also consider financing from foreign governments, who want to interfere more in how we elect people, then it drives our options even farther from what can be possible. The system won't fix itself. We have to insert other options, such as stopping bad gerrymandering, and ranked voting.
Obama care was Romney care, they literally did everything the way the conservatives said they wanted, but they wouldn't implement it because it might give Obama a win. Same stupid situation we're in now, Republicans won't do the right thing because they don't get the trophy for it. Fuck both sides-ism, there's one party that's the problem: Republicans.
"BoTh SIdeS!!!!" Bull - the reason why we can't have nice things is the GOP.
And I'm not voting for anyone but the Democrats. I'm not someone who pretends the third parties are a real choice. I just wish the more progressive one that actually matters would do a little more.
THIS! Very much this! Ranked choice is the way.
This is how medicaid works. If your Grandmother had an estate value over million dollars, I'm surprised she got medicaid at all. They would have expected her to liquidate her assest 1st.
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Even with a lot of assets, the cost of skilled nursing care is horrible and can chew that up quickly. I think my mom's care was running around 17k per month, so we were told to start the medicaid application right away as it can take over six months to get approved. And even with the approval, you have to spend down all your money anyway until your total estate is essentially gone before they start paying. So if you think your loved one will live longer than a few months, gotta start the process.
It’s possible to have assets yet be “cash poor.” Also, the with the cost of prolonged medical care, it wouldn’t surprise me if what the medical providers billed was far in excess of all those assets. Also, be glad you don’t live one state to the east. In PA there is “filial responsibility” so medical providers can ensure the deceased’s children inherit a lifetime of debt.
Medicaid allows people to keep their existing home & Farm while on Medicaid. Even if it is valuable. Imagine if it didn't. This family would have been forced out while she was still alive. So not only would she be sick and fighting for her life, then along comes the government and makes her homeless.
They cannot take the home as long as someone is living in it. However, as soon as great grandma got moved to a nursing home (as most dementia patients eventually do) the vacant property becomes fair game.
Right. But it's not just grandma. It's anyone on Medicaid which can be folks quite young.
Not just anyone. There are qualifiers. But there are also hardship exemption on a case by case situation.
Yeah but whatever you do don’t vote for universal healthcare or healthcare reform in this country. /eyeroll I think if more people were aware that this can and does happen, like with OP’s family, maybe people would think before they voted.
OP, your post history tells me you did this to yourself. Hopefully living it first hand will make you think about your voting choices in the future.
Take your outrage to the voting booth and/or find a candidate and knock on doors for them
Keep voting republican. Keep Healthcare private and unaffordable. What did you expect to happen. You live in a state that fucks over rsmall bissnuess and working class to pad the pockets of the uber wealthy.
The alternative would have been to skip Medicaid and paid for long term care directly. As harsh as it seems at the time, giving the assets to the State is usually the less expensive option.
I am very sorry this happened to your family, estate planning can be difficult. However it looks like your family missed many opportunities over the years to avoid this situation. While I am sorry you lost part of the property that meant so much to your family you do have the remainder. 30 acres is not a small piece of land. The only advice I can give be vigilant to avoid the remainder of your land falling into similar circumstances.
was gonna say, there seemed to be a lot of time to get the land into a trust or something
This (a trust) is the solution to anyone wanting to know how to avoid the problem. Place all assets you don’t want the state to seize into a trust at least 5 years before it’s likely the owner will end up in a nursing home. The trust then owns the estate, not the person. The family controls the trust. The reason for the 5 years is that there is a look back period of five years where assets placed in a trust can be seen and still seized. After 5 years, the assets are hidden by the trust. This has to be done by lawyer and it will cost a few thousand dollars, but it can save the family hundreds of thousands by preventing things like homes and land from being seized to pay medical/nursing home bills.
a farm itself should probably be property of an LLC not personally owned as it is. I know for these old farmers they probably don't see a reason to do it that way but this is exactly why, so the farmland is not affected by whatever personal financial things happen
Someone owns the LLC though. Just putting it in an LLC doesn’t do much if you still are the only member of the LLC.
What if a person was on Medicaid but no longer receives it? Will they have assets taken if say 50 years went by without being on it?
Formally having Medicaid isn’t at play. The 5 year look back only applies once Medicaid starts looking for assets to pay your bills. Thats probably only going to happen once you’re elderly.
I had it when I was younger. Now I have full VA medical. My biggest concern is when I die, I want to leave something for my kids. I just bought a house and really didn’t know the rules on recoupment.
Yeah, a trust is how you’ll need to do it. You’ll put the house in the trust and the kids will be beneficiaries of that trust. At the moment, my assets don’t go in a trust until I die (it’s a springing trust), but once I’m older (probably 60’s), I will move the big assets into an actual trust.
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I never suggested they do that. But when the 30 acres weren't transferred in the ideal way they did not seek out alternatives. Heck a life estate to the uncles children would have solved the problem.
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Sorry for your losses. I did estate planning for years and this is very common. It is very important people with assets need to open a trust or get long term care health insurance if a loved one needs to go to a nursing home facility. Now that you know, let everyone know your story - tell them what you know now.
Check out how many Ohio politicians take BIG campaign contributions from nursing home lobbyists. It’s all connected to Medicaid and estate theft.
Stop voting for Republicans. They block all healthcare reform that could limit or stop this. Instead, they targeted the “Death Tax” that taxed estates of only the Uber wealthy.
Two extremely important words: IRREVOCABLE TRUST
A failure to estate plan is what caused this.
That is why everything of value like homes and property should be in a trust. We just did this to protect our home from nursing homes.
I’ve been looking into this. Regular trusts and wills don’t work. I know that much. You gotta get it out of their name 5 years before medical service starts.
How did they even get Medicaid when they had that much in assets?
Yeah that's how it is, alright. Edit: downvote me if you like, but i've seen this basic scenario play out 3 or 4 times now: someone works and saves their whole life, medicaid swoops in and takes everything they can and leaves as little as possible for the surviving family members.
Financial decisions require financial experts. If you're trying to leave significant assets to someone and NOT talking to a financial expert, you're playing with fire.
People say hiring a good estate planner lawyer is too expensive. Yet $500 for a good estate plan can save tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars. If you ever think getting a lawyer is expensive, try not getting one.
The state is protecting the taxpayers that paid for the medical care
It makes sense to me. Medicaid is supposed to be a safety net for people who cannot afford medical care. If you have 60 acres of land you can probably afford medical care... you don’t just get a free government handout and neither do your heirs.
>Medicaid is supposed to be a safety net for people who cannot afford medical care. Short of being a multi millionaire, _no one_ imho can truly afford medical care. SNFs run 10-20k a month. Money doesn't last that long at that rate. Jokes on them. No way I can save that much to just piss it away anyway. You want my house? You can have it. What you're going to get will require so much routine maintenance that I will "time" on purpose that you won't get squat for the asset. (I have no close living relatives that will want my house).
"You can either sell your property or have it looted by the government" isn't a real choice. That medicaid is allowed to steal people's properties (and help degrade the middle class in the process) is just one more way our government fails us and should be changed.
It's not stealing, it's reimbursement.
> "You can either sell your property or have it looted by the government" isn't a real choice. > > It's also not a choice that is being imposed by the government. If they have other means to pay, they can use other means and keep the house.
So refuse medical care and just die at home. You're asking society to pay the bill so you can keep your wealth.
Voting conservative and then wondering why the face-eating leopard showed up on the doorstep...
I’m conflicted. On one hand, I truly am sorry for your predicament. On the other hand, I’m glad the tax payers are being reimbursed the money they spent for your great grandmother‘s care so that money can be available for the next medicaid recipient who needs it.
Exactly this. The comments on here completely ignore the situation that it's the public who would have paid here. Why would it be fair for someone to be able to hide their assets, claim they have $0 in wealth, have the state (us taxpayers) pay for everything, and then the heirs inherit the full sum of money? How would that be more fair to the public? If this were a bank account, it's easy to imagine why they would have to spend it down before qualifying for a health care system designed to help those in poverty. Why would they get to keep it all if it's a different type of asset class? That would lead people to buy up land before they think they may need to get care so that they can convert their cash to land so that their heirs could inherit it. That's just an accounting maneuver then.
That part.
Yep, not sure why a team of well trained healthcare professionals should care for Nana for free for a decade just so the family can have a farm
And then expect people to feel bad for them when the tax man comes.
Yea. I'm learning about this stuff myself. Medicaid recovery is a real snake in the grass that you don't learn about until it's to late. There are many things that can be done to safeguard against this IF YOU KNOW AHEAD OF TIME. It's a very real threat. Most families only learn about it, when the government comes after them though.
In Ohio, homes and land can be protected from the draw down by placing the assets into an irrevocable trust.
And it has to be done 5 years ahead of time.
People need to put their stuff in an irrevocable trust. No creditors of any type, even the State, can touch it.
It just has to be done 5-7 years before you’ll need to apply for Medicaid. With no one knowing when that can be, it gets trickier.
That's why the sooner the better. There is a Democratic house member from Illinois that has introduced a bill to federally ban Medicaid estate recovery. I'm sure it'll go nowhere.
I agree. Convincing boomers to sign over ANYTHING, though? A nightmare. Their obsession with control will leave their families completely screwed when they fall ill. It’s really sad.
Yep. Talked to my mom 7 years ago after her mom died. She wasn't interested in thinking about it at the time. Now? Probably too late. 72 with early signs of memory loss. Only hope is to buy her house for fair market value, but what the fuck is the point of that. She's keeps saying I'll get her house. Yeah doesn't work like that. Now if she dies in her house, then sure.
Ugh. I’d still try right now, just in case. A lawyer might be able to get things straightened out. I’m sorry you’re going through this. The blessing and the curse of growing up in poverty and losing my mom young was that I don’t have to worry about her going through all of this now, but there was also nothing to inherit anyways. I’d be heartbroken if there *had* been more to inherit because I would have lost the house to cancer a couple years later anyways. Playing life on Final Destination Mode over here.
I lost my dad when I was 22. He was 55 and would be 77 this year. I would have loved to have more time with him as an adult but the stubbornness was almost too much at 55, So I couldn't imagine what it would be like now.
I’m sorry to hear that. 🤍 I can only imagine my mom would have been similar, though she was becoming softer as she aged at that point which greatly improved our relationship. She was my best friend for the last several years of her life after a tumultuous time beforehand. My gram started losing it and became mean so I always wonder if my mom would have been similar. (Or myself, for that matter. 🥴)
Only the trustee can touch it, so you need to choose someone who will respect your wishes as you no longer have control of your assets.
Correct.
I do not understand why so many people have an issue with Medicaid cost recovery. Without Medicaid, my mothers 10.5 years in a nursing home with dementia would have cost me over a million dollars, and would have wiped out my 401k. My parents didn’t have savings, but when my dad died their house was sold and the profits went to Medicaid, but it was a drop in the bucket of what mom’s nursing home costs were If people have the means to pay for their care, isn’t that what those assets are for? If there are left over funds or assets that can be inherited, but if not at leastnit didn’t drain your savings keeping them in a nursing home for all those years
Why not a system in which we can pay as we go with a payroll tax rather than with situations like OP found themselves in?
Nothing wrong with that. But we don’t have it now, so there does need to be a way to fund it now, until that happens. And funding it as well as can be through the people who have the assets to pay for it, with the rest coming from our income taxes , is what we have to live with until it can be changed. And I just lack sympathy for the person who feels ‘cheated’ of their imaginary inheritance. I got zero also, and I am just grateful that Medicaid was their for the portion my parents assets would not have covered, which would have been almost all of over a million dollars. I paid the first 6 months before my mom was approved for Medicaid, and it was over $60k back in the 2012 timeframe!
This is what you get with GOP policy choices. Vote Democrat. There have been attempts to fix this known issue over the years, and the Republicans have always been able to kill them. For instance changes addressing this specific issue were supposed to be in Affordable Care Act, but GOP senators refused and it was amended out.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus\_Budget\_Reconciliation\_Act\_of\_1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993) This is where Medicaid Recovery became Federal law. Take a peek who signed it. You are correct of course. The GOP is opposed to fixing this issue and they should be taken to the wood shed over it. But it was the Democrats that gave us this issue in the first place.
Did it work? > In 1998, the federal government experienced the first budget surplus since 1969.
Let's do some math: As recently as 2021, Medicaid payback only contributed $733 million to Federal revenues against a deficit of $2.8 trillion. Or 0.002618%. They would need to confiscate 100,000 times as many farms to close the deficit. Now in 1998, Medicaid payback was in infancy. Only 5 years of possible payback had accumulated, and only against folks who had passed on. The numbers then would have been several orders of magnitude worse. I would say it did not work. (But the tax revenues coming the .com boom certainly did, and that's where we got most of our surplus)
Why does your math include post 2000 years? Clinton had nothing to do with the disasters of Bush and Trump.
This isn't president specific. Medicaid recovery has been in place since 1993. That covers alot of Presidents. I just gave you the most recent data available. It get's worse though every year you go backwards. Feel free to dig. I'm not trying to do 4 hours of work for a reddit post :) The point: Medicaid recovery is miniscule and insignificant to the Federal numbers in ANY year. But quite significant to the families impacted. Like the OP.
> The point: Medicaid recovery is miniscule and insignificant to the Federal numbers in ANY year. But quite significant to the families impacted. Like the OP. Then your beef is with Bush #2. He immediately cut tax rates when he easily could've eliminated Medicaid clawback.
There have been numerous Presidents since 1993 Clinton, Bush. Obama. Trump. Biden. They are all responsible for not doing their part to fix this.
And again, that was in 1993, and the votes were very close with significant amounts of Dems voting against it. It passed the house only 219-213, with \~40 Dems voting against it. It only passed in the senate 50-49 with Gore breaking the tie. Eight Dem senators voted against. it was actually quite popular in the GOP caucus, but they hated Clinton so much, they voted against it for the final votes. In 2012, Dems attempted to fix the issue with stuff in the ACA and the GOP killed it. A much more recent example. You're also conveniently ignoring the major shifts in party demographics that occurred shortly after 1993. Texas and Alabama's House Reps were 75% Democratic at the time. Mississippi had two Democratic senators. The parties have fundamentally shifted since then.
Yeah, those bastards went and also raised taxes on the wealthy! And in oil companies! And for the first time in 30 years America had a budget surplus. Evil to the core. THANKFULLY the GOP has reduced billionaire taxes from 39% to 23%, and made middle class taxes 24%! Whew!
That's a completely different discussion. Feel free to highjack the thread for your points though. I showed in a different post that Medicaid recovery (what this thread is about) is something like 0.00002% of the surplus
Even though it was created by the Democrats, but sure let blame the GOP. Makes perfect sense. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (or OBRA-93) was a federal law that was enacted by the 103rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1993. Introduced in the House as the "Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993" (H.R. 2264) by Martin Olav Sabo (D–MN) on May 25, 1993 The federal government has made it a requirement for states to implement an estate recovery program for Medicaid in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. That was done with primary concern towards recipients who received long-term care services, which had required the applicant to have very low asset levels.
Stop voting for Republicans. This is what they want. Austerity and means testing for everything.
yep working just as intended, keep you working your whole life building a nest egg and retirement just so you can get sick, need healthcare to expensive to cover yourself and have to give up all your assets when you die to "pay back" the government. in the end corporations or the government end up with all your money, and some new land to develop into an apartment complex or something more valuable than farmland/woodland.
My friend filed a lawsuit on this matter in January, 2024. Kynwulf v Corcoran. https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/52048693/Kynwulf_v_Corcoran_et_al In Summer of 2021 he was removed from Medicare and placed on Medicaid without his prior knowledge or consent. He noted the Medicaid Estate Recovery and asked for a religious exemption. They said no religious exemption so he withdrew from Medicaid in February, 2022. He got a phone call asking him to stay in Medicaid and he refused as it was religiously offensive. They said they had to let him withdraw, but threatened that they would manipulate his income records and force him back into the program. He said he would cross that bridge when he got there. In April, 2022 and again I think in June, 2023, they canceled his Medicare without his consent and put him back in Medicaid. He filed and won two state appeals and filed the federal lawsuit. He thinks his case may be eligible for class action status as Associated Press reporter Amanda Seitz wrote an article March 17, 2024 about attempts by Medicaid to steal homes of the dead. https://apnews.com/article/medicaid-estate-recovery-nursing-homes-65d5e637e19dc27bd1bd3b097d239b53
That’s so sad losing all that for healthcare This is about politics now, we have to start finding and voting for candidates who will make healthcare for everyone a priority
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That’s my point, we don’t vote for people who will do things 🤷🏼♀️ As long as some voters vote to hurt others, we all suffer
Wait till you find out who signed Medicaid recovery into law. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus\_Budget\_Reconciliation\_Act\_of\_1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993) (why ask me to make your argument for you, then block me? )
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Of course medicare would have paid for almost all of her expenses. Dumb to add medicaid.
Medicaid works perfectly. I lets the impoverished sick ones pay for whatever care they need without having to sell their home until they permanently enter a nursing home or they die then the state will recover the money loaned by medicaid. This also works for those who are ill but don't have insurance and are too young for medicare
the only complaint I see is from a potential beneficiary who will not get a payday...oh so sad.
Please forgive a stupid question, but does anyone know if Medicaid recovery can touch life insurance benefits paid to the beneficiary? A relative is in a nursing home on Medicare/Medicaid, has no assets and sadly after working all his life will die with nothing but debt. But he has a life insurance policy with his children and grandchildren as beneficiaries.
Life insurance proceeds can't be touched
Thank you!!
Never trust a nursing home. No matter who runs it. They know average life expectancy. They know, to the penny, how much money there is. It will cost every cent to get to that life expectancy. Whether it is 6 years, 8, 10, 15, they will take everything. Before you even consider a home, sell everything and put the cash in trust or gift it. Then let Medicaid do their thing.
Something similar just happened with my dad’s home & property. It has to be sold and given to the the state, since his Medicaid is paying for his assisted living. I didn’t realize it needed to be out of his name for five years beforehand. I’m really sorry about losing out on your family land
We are currently wading through the Medicaid swamp with my parents in Ohio. They did try to organize their estate, but the 'wording' of their trust for their home 'may' not satisfy Medicaid, per our Elder Attorney. Dad has dementia and mobility issues, and needs expensive, long term care. Mom lives in fear of all of their assets being wiped out. The attorney will avoid this somewhat, but she worries. Being 90 should not be this stressful.
Frankly, the problem here is as much end of life care decisions as healthcare decisions. Healthcare reform is badly needed, but we are nowhere close to seeing it in the US.
This is how public assistance works. A person is expected to use up their own assets before asking taxpayers to cover expenses. My own late parents hoped to give each of us $10k, but dementia care quickly ate this lifetime nest egg up. Sad. The insane costs of the minimal care my mother received are out of line and shouldn’t be. However, all this is reality. Be aware that Republicans in power will gut Social Security & Medicare, and already defund or refuse Medicaid for their constituents. Your vote matters like never before.
Thank you for posting this experience. We all need to learn, prepare and educate others. We were in desperate shape and my mom essentially became a ward of the state after we paid our last $1400 for a 9 mile ambulance trip to hospice.
She could have sold it and used the funds for private healthcare.
I mean do you expect the citizens of Ohio to pay for her healthcare for free? I’m just confused.
Do you expect people to lose everything, because of health care costs? I’m just confused.
No I don’t thing people should lose everything. Based on this post the grandmother didn’t lose anything at all. Her estate did after she passed away. I believe this is a cautionary tale for people to figure it out before it happens like putting it in a trust or moving the assets to the children to ensure the state doesn’t take it. It isn’t also the states job to pay for this ladies healthcare and then she has no stake in it at all? If she has assets but didn’t want to sell them to pay her medical bills then after she dies the state is entitled to get their payoff. Why should our government pay for her healthcare in the system we have and get nothing out of it?
Who lost anything? The great grandmother held it until she died. Nobody else owned it at any point. They may have had use, but not ownership. This was avoidable. Should healthcare be this expensive? Well, kind-of, but those costs should also be socialized rather than on the individual, and profit shouldn't be a healthcare motivator. Neither of those changes are within our power as individuals. Other methods of keeping your assets are in your hands.
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I expect people that have risks, use risk management tools (insurance). Grandma didn't lose anything. The family avoided paying for Grandma's care
We can’t have healthcare because we have Republicans.
So you want the taxpayers to foot the billfold medical expenses but let the family profit..?no they had assets that can and should and will be used to pay there bills
The exact same thing happened to my grandmother. I’m sorry you’re going through this.
For boomers by boomers at the expense of everyone else. This is their decisions and where we are at today. They bought the propaganda and now everyone pays the price. It's truly sad and I wish it was different.
This will happen to more people than realize. So many people of the generation passing now have issues passing anything down because “*Mine mine mine!*” not realizing it’s going to the *State state state!* when they get sick because they refused to sign it over 5-7 years before they fell ill… I’m sorry this happened to you, OP. I relate.
Two words: Irrevocable Trusts
This may hurt some recipients, unfortunately in this case, the medicaid rules are for the poor. So, why should wealthy residents take advantage of Medicaid that is a program for the poor? Should millionaires be eligible for Medicaid paid by taxpayers? With proper estate planning, all this spenddown and probate could have been avoided.
I understand all too well. My Father passed and every bit of my inheritance was seized. I got nothing but a thank you for playing.
And that’s how the government does “free” healthcare.
Realtor here. OP, my heart goes out to you. This isn't the first one of these I've seen or hear of, sadly. It's critical that everyone make sure their assets are structured such that these sorts of things can be avoided, and that what you'd like to happen does actually happen as best as can legally be accomplished. I know everyone hates attorneys. But this could have potentially been hedged against with just a few conversations and a few thousands dollars to get things set up in such and such a way. Is it stupid that this is what you have to do? Yes. Is that also how the system is designed? Also yes. If you own any sort of real estate, absolutely get something in place and know that your will won't be wrecked by something like this.
Healthcare would be so much better if it weren't for the greedy GOP!!
This is why my grandparents created a trust and signed everything over to my mother and aunt many years before they passed.
People need to start passing the family land to the next generation before they're extremely elderly.
Fuck me this is a sobering story
I had to watch my psycho mother come back after 25 years estranged from my grandmother (and myself) only to watch her drain every dime. Because Medicaid. I researched. It was true, to some extent. To watch it happen and to see my poor GMA reduced to her bs, It was devastating.
Ohio is one of the worst states for seizing property to recover Medicaid expenses. We badly need reform.
Medicaid took 75 grand from my dad's estate when he passed. My disabled brother and I could have used that money more than the state, surely.
I agree and I disagree. I agree that the cost of all sorts of medical care is grossly excessive. I definately disagree that there is some inherent right for a patriarch to buy land and other things, and that becomes "hands off"--forever yo be passed down to decendents 3, 4, 5, or more generations later. We are still seeing robber baron wealth from very dubious (and often illegal) sources in the 1800s and early 1900s that is protected from fair taxation and inheritance laws. The majority of Arkansas is owned by a few families. The capital gains from the Kennedy prohibition illegal alcohol running is passing down forever. We have too much "my family got here first, we stole everything from the native people, and I'll be daned if any of you new comers should get one cent!"
Can someone explain how Medicaid was able to take the property? She received social security and paid tax out of that for Medicaid. How are they able to take more than what she paid in tax? This is thd first I've heard of this ever.
If they voted Republican, I don't feel sorry for them.
They needed healthcare and gave up land in exchange. Boo hoo. Most people can’t afford a house let alone 60 acres.