News

23328 readers

4431 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

208

State Medicaid offices target dead people’s homes to recoup their health care costs (apnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/news

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As Salvatore LoGrande fought cancer and all the pain that came with it, his daughters promised to keep him in the white, pitched roof house he worked so hard to buy all those decades ago.

So, Sandy LoGrande thought it was a mistake when, a year after her father’s death, Massachusetts billed her $177,000 for her father’s Medicaid expenses and threatened to sue for his home if she didn’t pay up quickly.

“The home was everything,” to her father said LoGrande, 57.

But the bill and accompanying threat weren’t a mistake.

Rather, it was part of a routine process the federal government requires of every state: to recover money from the assets of dead people who, in their final years, relied on Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded health insurance for the poorest Americans.

This month, a Democratic lawmaker proposed scuttling the “cruel” program altogether. Critics argue the program collects too little — roughly 1% — of the more than $150 billion Medicaid spends yearly on long-term care. They also say many states fail to warn people who sign up for Medicaid that big bills and claims to their property might await their families once they die.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A house is not an asset if it's the one place you can live cost-free in retirement.
We all pay into the system with our taxes - including someone who earned enough to afford a home. Why should anyone not benefit from the taxes they paid?
Anyone can be sick and in long-term care as they age, including ourselves. As we age, we may not be able to keep working. Those costs add up fast in our healthcare system. And we don't get to make those choices up front for ourselves or our families. The bills come months if not years later. No one says what you owe until it's too late. Why should anyone pay a cost they weren't told would be coming?

I can't argue that the way the US provides many services based off wealth is fair - I believe we should have a universal system that we all benefit from. Why should someone making less than me get better services than me because my job offers worse insurance than they get? We should all benefit.

But, if the choice is that no one benefits or that of our current system. I'll choose our current system. Because I don't know if I'll be the one on the other side 40 years from now.

[–] jeffw -5 points 8 months ago

Just playing devil’s advocate here… Medicaid doesn’t take your house until after you die. Not saying I think it’s a good practice