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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (134818)	8/28/2005 4:13:40 PM
From: gamesmistress	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793597

They'll probably have portapotties. I hate to think of the damage this may do to the sewage system. And the city is sending out buses: Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome. I wonder why the Superdome is only for people with special medical needs. The worst part will be after the storm and there's no place for people in the shelters to go.

To: Lane3 who wrote (134818)	8/28/2005 4:40:35 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793597

I've been tidying up my computer in anticipation of migrating to a new arrival and I came upon something relevant to an earlier discussion, something I mentioned but couldn't find. So here it is. From the Arizona Star four years ago. Tucson, Arizona Sunday, 29 July 2001 'Spend-down process' may preserve benefits By Bard Lindeman Q: My mother is going into a nursing home. Will she have to sell her own home to qualify for Medicaid? Mind you, this is not a wealthy woman. Her only sizable asset is the house in which she has lived 45 years. A: We're speaking here of the "spend-down process," or ruse. In summary, you cannot get Medicaid assistance until virtually most of your assets are gone. According to the Consumer Reports Complete Guide to Health Services for Seniors (Three Rivers Press, 2000), you may keep only your house - provided dependent or disabled children still live in the house, or your spouse - the furniture, a car, burial funds and a burial plot, along with a very small amount of cash. Now, you further say a lawyer has advised your mother to give the home to your single brother. A caution: The spend-down process has what is labeled the "look-back period." In short, three years (36 months) must pass before Medicaid considers that your mother no longer possesses the home. Medicaid, incidentally, is a state program with broad federal guidelines. Each state has its own eligibility rules. Kiplinger's magazine terms these "maddeningly complex." My counsel: 1) Hire an experienced elder-law attorney familiar with Medicaid rules and the state bureaucracy; 2) Understand, at the outset, that your family is entering a dense thicket. As the Consumer Reports Guide states, the rules for Medicaid "are complicated and change frequently. … Even state officials may not keep track of changes." Lastly on this issue: There are those who hold that "spending down" is legal, yet it is unethical and, perhaps, immoral. The idea, of course, is to avoid paying the extremely high costs of long-term care. Some homes charge $5,000 a month. At present, Medicaid pays for half of all nursing home bills, and presently this sum is $40 billion but rising every year. No political authority - not Congress, nor any of the state legislatures - wants to tell the American consumer that he or she should have budgeted, or bought long-term health care insurance, to cover potential nursing home stays. Thus, our society continues to dance this jolly jig, called "spending down." The net result: Each Joe or Jane seeks to pass along the painful expenditure to someone else. It's the old "not in my back yard" philosophy. When I suggested to one lawyer that he was "teaching people to cheat," he objected. "To the contrary," he said loudly. "I'm teaching people to survive." Meanwhile, you may want to contact the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, located in Tucson. Phone: 881-4005 and on the Web at www.naela.org. There's also a Web site operated by attorney Jan Warner of Columbia, S.C., offering free Medicaid advice at www.nextsteps.net.