You May Have One Last Chance
Bob Mason
Originally published in the Asheboro Courier-Tribune (1/22/2006)
On February 1, the House of Representatives may well enact legislation that will punish seniors who need immediate nursing home care and who have transferred assets any time within five years before needing the care. This will hurt hundreds of people in Randolph County.
If you have taken any action to try and protect your modest resources, or if you have been considering doing this out of fear of losing everything you have if you need to go into a nursing home, then to many you are gaming the system and using it as an “inheritance protection plan” in order to take advantage of “welfare-financed nursing homes”.
The House previously passed the measure 212-206 in a pre-dawn vote on December 19, before scattering for the holiday break. Four days later, Vice President Dick Cheney cast the deciding vote to pass the bill in the Senate (you cannot get closer than 51-50). Opponents of the bill successfully made minor alterations before passage, which was enough to throw it back to the House for final approval before going to President Bush for signature. Speaker Hastert has scheduled “final approval” for February 1.
Congress enacted Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 as part of LBJ’s Great Society Program. Medicare is a medical insurance program designed to meet the needs of all seniors and many disabled individuals. It has done an admirable job of protecting our nation’s seniors from abject poverty as a result of medical expenses. It is available to all seniors, regardless of financial condition.
Medicaid, on the other hand, was designed to provide medical care for those poor enough to financially qualify. The problem is that Medicare provides nearly no nursing home benefits. Medicaid, on the other hand, does. I have no idea why a policy decision was made at some point to treat the need for skilled nursing services in a long-term care facility different from some other sort of catastrophic medical condition.
Once you understand this problem, you’ll understand that cutting Medicaid nursing home benefits will not work. The problem isn’t that wealthy seniors are gaming the system (while a very few no doubt have, the problem is easy to fix). The problem is that for many once-middle-class seniors there is no alternative but poverty. Insurance, for many, was never available. Medicare, as I mentioned, could pay perhaps $100,000 or more to treat a brain tumor, but if grandpa develops Alzheimer’s disease and needs to go into a nursing home, he and grandma will be out of luck.
Congress has chosen to “fix the problem” by blindly slashing $2.4 billion from the Medicaid budget over five years. While this is a lot of money, nearly $2 billion of budgetary savings had to be scrapped in the dead of night to meet the demands of Ohio congressmen seeking to protect a manufacturer of medical oxygen tanks based in Ohio. Unfortunately, Congress has ducked the issue of how to address a tremendous social problem. Instead, many seniors (many you know) will be forced into poverty or will eventually lose everything they have before eventually qualifying for Medicaid in any event.
Congressman Coble favors these cuts and will likely vote for the cuts again on February 1. You can let him know how much these cuts will hurt. Please call or write him today. Tell him you are opposed to any version of the Deficit Reduction Act that contains punitive nursing home transfer penalties.
If he votes for these changes, he needs to understand there will be many unhappy voters.
Potential Call Out
You may contact Representative Howard Coble as follows:
Hon. Howard Coble
Washington Office:
2468 RHOB
Washington, DC 20515-3306
Phone: (202) 225-3065
Fax: (202) 225-8611
Main District Office:
2102 N. Elm St., Ste. B
Greensboro, NC 27408
Phone: (336) 333-5005
Fax: (336) 333-5048
Local Asheboro Office:
336-626-3060]
