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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/[email protected]

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.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This is actually Medicaid, not Medicare. Medicaid is often used to cover premiums and copays for Medicare for lower income individuals including people dealing with cancer and such though.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

ah I did type the wrong one, but still...ive never heard of it being treated as a loan like this and I am shocked this isn't more common knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yeah, I agree it isn't common knowledge and that the policy needs to change.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

Right, but this still makes it a loan. Which I don’t really understand. I thought Medicaid is a “welfare” program designed to fill in gaps in health care for those who can’t afford insurance.

It is ridiculous how overcomplicated healthcare is in the US.