Medicaid Change Destroys Family Unit - Long Term Care Insurance Needed.

Medicaid budget cuts will disproportionately hurt those who can least afford it, especially the frail, sick and elderly in need of long term care. The culprit behind this impending social crisis is an imminent and dramatic change to some states’ Medicaid eligibility.This change obliterates a safety net for married couples when one spouse falls ill, and it makes home care benefits much more difficult to obtain. The result will be to diminish the availability of home care, increase costly nursing home admissions and multiply the number of impoverished elderly couples.

Under new laws, Medicaid home care services will be denied to a spouse if a couple has more than $5,400 in assets and monthly income exceeding $900 — and that amount must be used to pay for basic monthly living expenses including food, clothing, medicine and even rent. Sheesh…
Imagine a couple that has been married for 60 years at the time the husband has a stroke that leaves him paralyzed.

To pay for the at-home care that the husband requires, this couple would be forced to give up any assets they may have. The alternative? Divorce so the ailing husband can get the care he needs through Medicaid. This will be the only way she can retain some savings and income that she will need to live comfortably.

This destruction of the family unit will have a profound effect on our community, don’t you think?
Alternatively, if the couple cannot bear the idea of divorce or abandonment, the wife may be forced to admit the husband prematurely into a nursing home. What message does this send to our fellow citizens?

The “new” Medicaid provisions are the result of an inaccurate view of the plight of the frail elderly.

The currently elderly generation that lived through the Depression and fought in World War II are not shirkers who seek to avoid paying their own way. They are good folks who have worked hard their entire lives and wish nothing more than to remain in their own homes. They are justifiably afraid that expensive long-term care will leave them unable to pay rent or afford alternate housing expenses.

These are parents who helped children purchase their first homes or helped put a grandchild through college and unwittingly made a transfer that will now deny them Medicaid coverage for catastrophic costs that they simplty cannot pay.

These are couples that have cared for one another through better and worse, and they just want to be sure that health care costs will not force the healthy spouse to experience years of poverty after the ill spouse is gone. Is this too much to ask?

These are people who have dutifully paid their taxes year in and out and were unfortunate enough to have become sick and frail with age.

We advocate purchasing long term care insurance as a way to help folks fund their own long term care costs. Yet, for those who have already been diagnosed with certain illnesses, that is impossible because they no longer qualify for insurance by virtue of a pre-existing condition. Still others are too old to obtain coverage, and many living on fixed budgets are unable to pay the required premiums. This is why you want to get your coverage early on to lock in the lower rates.

Those who suffer with Alzheimer’s disease, have had a stroke, or contracted a debilitating chronic illness will not go away simply because they are denied the dignity and support of a caring society, and they are not to be blamed for becoming old, frail and in need of care.

Behind the bureaucracy and the cuts on paper, there are real people who will suffer immeasurably because of this destructive legislation. Our seniors deserve better.

And for us? We need to get serious about our own insurance policies before it’s too late.

Get your LTC insurance rate quotes now through the Buyer’s Advocate.

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