Posts Tagged ‘Long Term Care Partnership’
Bill in Congress to Restrict Medicaid to Really Needy
Congressman Charles W. Boustany, Jr., MD (R, LA) introduced the Medicaid Long-Term Care Reform Act of 2012 (H.R. 6300) on August 2, 2012. This legislation advances the cause of responsible LTC planning and rational LTC public policy.
The short description of H.R. 6300 and the full text can be found on http://thomas.loc.gov. This bill may not pass, but others like it will be coming down the pike. Medicaid simply cannot pay for all the coming baby boomers LTC expenses. A few of its major features follow:
Changing of the lookback period for divestments prior to qualifying for Medicaid from 5 to 10 years. It also calls for reducing the maximum home equity for the “at home” spouse from $788,000 to $200,000 or $50,000. Block granting of Medicaid (to stop the abuses) is also called for.
People who wish to protect their nest eggs will be encouraged to investigate LTC insurance. The Partnership program which encourages this will be expanded as well. Right now governors are being queried as to their input on this bill.
What does this mean to me?
The upshot of all this is that Medicaid canot take care of everyone’s LTC expenses and the federal government realizes this and IS making changes. If LTC insurance is of interest to you, bear in mind you can only get it while you are still healthy enough to qualify for the underwriting.
Call TheLongTermCareGuy.com at 920 884-3030 to schedule a time to investigate this for your situation.