For 20 years, federal law has protected married couples from having to choose between divorcing or becoming impoverished when one spouse needs expensive nursing home care, allowing the healthier spouse to retain assets and income while the sicker one’s care is covered by Medicaid.
New York has extended this same rule to couples where one requires at home care.
Now, the federal government has ruled that New York has been too generous in applying the income protections to people at home, forcing several thousand couples to make a stark choice by March.
Advocates say the number of couples affected is close to 4,000.
The advocates say that the federal interpretation makes little sense.
“The root of their interpretation is that Congress wanted to give states the option of extending these protections, but only to those whose incomes are so low that they would have no income to share with their spouse,” Ms. Bogart said. “It would be so absurd that no one would ever qualify.
2 comments:
Why would a conservative do that? Bush doesn't evaluate consequences, and ends up with many unintended ones? Home is almost always cheaper than an institution.
I know someone who is affected by the law as it stands--they are having to burn through all retirement funds, savings, double mortgage their house, etc., which will leave her husband destitute as he ages. It's terrible. Thank you for writing about it. So many people are unaware until it happens to someone they know.
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