“The 500 pound canary squatting squarely in the middle of any conversation about custodial care remains our gift from Lyndon Johnson.
I do not mean to extend any normative values to Medicaid. In many ways it may be our single most effective exercise at establishing and funding social justice. Because it is primarily a state run program there are naturally many variations of its benefit availability, severity of debt collection from heirs, and the basic rules of interaction with Medicare and the adult children who become entangled in it’s execution.
It is difficult to put it in perspective. Medicaid’s co-dependence with the Affordable Care Act continues to percolate at the center of today’s political debate. It is important to remember that although long term care costs are it’s greatest expense, in terms of head counts children are the largest beneficiary of needed assistance.”
Click here to read more, originally published in the May 2018 edition of Broker World Magazine.