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From The Book: (Excerpted from the sixteen page chapter)
"There are three major phrases that the reader must become familiar with—
Lien laws, Estate Recovery Laws, and Medicaid Recovery Units. They are real, necessary, and effective. They were designed to protect a program set up years ago for those
truly in need, but which has been invaded by people who chose to simply "skirt" the intended use of Medicaid, and "get my long term care needs covered by the government."
"Unfortunately, many well-meaning and well-intentioned people are not aware that
the program is not an entitlement, and are unwittingly cast into the Medicaid situation simply because of poor or misdirected advice. They are honest, law-abiding
citizens who "went along with the system," usually during a time of crises, when urgent and immediate action had to be taken, because proper planning had not been achieved. You
can avoid such scenarios—this chapter will show you how."
"Medicaid—Why it isn't working as intended—And
why we can't blame the nursing homes. First of all, you may be aware that Medicaid pays most of the nation's nursing home bill, but you may not be aware of the problems
this reliance on Medicaid has caused the nursing homes. In this chapter we discuss how people qualify for Medicaid, and how others, who have no right to Medicaid paid for
nursing home assistance, imperil the system. To simplify, let's resort to some basic facts. Medicaid is welfare. Welfare is paid for by state and federal governments. So, it follows
then, that welfare programs are not going to be plush; that they are going to be as bare-boned as tax dollars will allow. It further follows, then, that nursing homes are at the mercy
of what Medicaid can afford to pass on to them in the form of monetary payments, derived from limited tax sources, thereby perpetuating a never-ending dilemma."
"OBRA '93 was the first indication of government's
recognition that it could not continue to take on larger and larger responsibilities for American healthcare. Not only did the Federal government recognize that it could not
continue to give money away under Medicaid, but forcefully began to inform the states that they needed to tighten up the rules for qualification for welfare, and resultant nursing
home assistance under Medicaid. Additionally, OBRA 93 required the states to aggressively recover money it had paid to some recipients,
who had no right to it in the first place. As a result, during the next two years, most state legislatures were busy enacting legislation which effectively gave the state the right to recover Medicaid nursing home payments, to which the patient appeared to be LEGALLY qualified, from two sources—Estate Recovery laws and Lien filing laws. We italicize the term "legally qualified" here, because the recipient would be assumed to be legally qualified until Medicaid personnel, or a Medicaid recovery unit, discovered differently. …Keep in mind that the four "Partnership" states of California, New York, Connecticut, and Indiana, will have an entirely different set of rules."
"As Medicaid money becomes more scarce, the requirements for
qualifying must become more strict. Solutions will be very hard to come by, and the "entitlement mentality" which assumed that entitlements are here to stay sees some
major cracks developing. The idea that one generation goes into debt to support another may very likely be demolished by those unwilling and unable to support such a system."
"One more issue needs to be addressed. Remember that Medicaid
Planning has, as its foundation, the transfer of assets. Nowhere is it written that elderly people are anxious to transfer their assets."
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