Moving Medicaid To State Would Put Children On Hook For Parent's Long Term Care.

[TheMastersNemesis]

Chris Christie wants to move Medicaid to the states. The rest of the story is that under such a plan the children could become financially liable for their parents nursing home care. Right now only the assets of the individual in a nursing home are subject to seizure if they do not have enough money for nursing home care. Under the GOP plan with the end of the federal mandate protecting the assets of the family and children the state would be free to pass laws that would allow liens to be placed on the property of the children and maybe even grandchildren.

In the past before the medicaid law the children were liable for long term care provided by the state of parents too poor to pay for their own care.

So the children could add that burden to their student loans.

[pnwmom]

1. And 30 states already have these laws on the books that require children to support parents.

Federal Medicaid funds required these laws not to be enforced, but if Medicaid funding for nursing homes end, states will be free to start enforcing the support laws again.

[TheMastersNemesis]

2. The Public Is Very Ignorant About What State Authority Would Mean.

People need to really push back against this madness. My mother's sisters had to kick in money to support their mother in nursing home in the late 1960's. My mom was out of state so she was exempted at the time. And the state can put liens on property and garnish wages in such situations without the federal mandate in force. .

[jwirr]

4. You are correct before Medicaid was created the states paid for the care of the indigent because

they had to. The programs were called Old Age Assistance. The families were held responsible for the bills - period.

When the feds took over and created Medicaid the states still had to pay for part of the care but they had the right to administer the programs and they still have that right today. Today with our lean to the right we are again getting the complaint that the family should help to pay for grandma.

They forget how many families lived in poverty in those good old days so they could pay for grandma. Of course there were also those grandmas who gave all their wealth to the children and then let the taxpayer take care of her. And this is where the demand for family to pay for the care started. I don't think much of this happens anymore because there are laws regarding giving you own wealth away so you can have assistance.

All they are going to accomplish in those 30 states is more poverty.

[spanone]

3. move it to the states and pols like christie can put their friends in charge of it....and loot it

[GoneFishin]

5. Anything to create more poor people too desperate to turn down a $2/hour job in factories owned by

greedy Republicans and their Corporatist friends. It seems that everything they do creates more people who are forced to work more jobs and longer hours, to support family members with ever diminishing resources. Of course, that serves two purposes : it increases the competition for jobs and depresses wages, and 2) keeps people preoccupied with buying groceries and not being evicted such that voting becomes a luxury that they just can't afford.