Medicare is great - the cost of the supplemental insurance is only about $200/month. Quite a bit less than before I was eligible - a decent policy then was over $800/month.
Medicaid is something quite different as this Seattle Times article points out:
Expanded Medicaid’s fine print holds surprise: ‘payback’ from estate after death
It wasn’t the moonlight, holiday-season euphoria or family pressure that made Sofia Prins and Gary Balhorn, both 62, suddenly decide to get married.
It was the fine print.
As fine print is wont to do, it had buried itself in a long form — Balhorn’s application for free health insurance through the expanded state Medicaid program. As the paperwork lay on the dining-room table in Port Townsend, Prins began reading.
She was shocked: If you’re 55 or over, Medicaid can come back after you’re dead and bill your estate for ordinary health-care expenses.
The way Prins saw it, that meant health insurance via Medicaid is hardly “free” for Washington residents 55 or older. It’s a loan, one whose payback requirements aren’t well advertised. And it penalizes people who, despite having a low income, have managed to keep a home or some savings they hope to pass to heirs, Prins said.
A bit more:
Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the politically conservative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,
writing in the The Washington Times, called the recovery provision “a cash cow for states to milk the poor and the middle class.”
“People will think this is wonderful, this is free insurance,” Orient said in an interview. “They don’t realize it’s really a loan, and is secured by any property they have.”
This administration's war against the middle-class writ large for all to see. If they don't get you with an estate tax, they will get you with this. Confiscate the money so the heirs will have to be complacent wards of the state.
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