“California Is Planning to Eliminate the Asset Test for Medicaid Applicants”

 

“California Is Planning to Eliminate the Asset Test for Medicaid Applicants,” ElderLawAnswers 

  

Quote:

“California is in the process of removing the asset test for all Medicaid (Med-Cal) programs. … In addition, if California’s implementation is successful, other states may follow suit and pass similar measures. As the elimination of the asset test for Medi-Cal is new and unique to California (for now), an individual would need to create a new plan if they moved states, and also be prepared if federal approval, once obtained, were revoked or the law modified in the future.”

 

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

A couple people have brought this story to my attention. Here’s how I responded:

Ironically, it wouldn’t make much difference. The only people who get snagged now by Medicaid’s ostensibly draconian financial eligibility rules are the borderline cases who have few assets to begin with and lose them quickly to LTC because they don’t have access to legal and financial advice. The middle class and affluent routinely shelter wealth or they transferred their assets long ago.

Of course, California does not have the authority under federal law to disregard assets. But that has not stopped the state from ignoring requirements in federal law (that I worked so hard to achieve) from OBRA ’93 and DRA ’05. California has thumbed its nose at the Feds for decades on Medicaid long-term care rules. I don’t see that changing.

What is changing is the public’s attitude toward careless monetary and fiscal policy. It looks like Build Back Better is going down. Advocates’ and analysts’ great hope of the WA Cares Fund hit a wall as I predicted it would. No one even seriously imagines anymore that a new national social insurance program is feasible, much less shoehorning LTC into Medicare. Who knows? We may be drifting back toward financial sanity in which the “The Social Contract for Long-Term Care” I’ve advocated for lo these many years will get traction.