“Increasing Medicaid’s Stagnant Asset Test For People Eligible For Medicare And Medicaid Will Help Vulnerable Seniors,” by Noelle Cornelio, Melissa Powell McInerney, Jennifer M. Mellor, Eric T. Roberts, and Lindsay M. Sabik, Health Affairs

Quote:

“Low-income Medicare beneficiaries rely on Medicaid for supplemental coverage but must meet income and asset tests to qualify. We examined states’ income and asset tests for full-benefit Medicaid during the period 2006–18 and examined how alternative asset tests would affect eligibility for community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries ages sixty-five and older. Most states have not updated the dollar limit of Medicaid’s asset test since 1989, making the asset test increasingly restrictive in inflation-adjusted terms. We estimated that increasing Medicaid’s asset limit by the Consumer Price Index, to Medicare Savings Program levels, or to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for couples would increase Medicaid eligibility by 1.7 percent, 4.4 percent, and 7.5 percent, respectively. Simplifying Medicaid’s asset test to focus only on certain high-value assets would increase eligibility by 20.5 percent. Increasing asset limits would lessen restrictions on Medicaid eligibility that arise from stagnant asset tests, broadening eligibility for certain low-income Medicare beneficiaries and allowing them to retain higher, yet still modest, savings.”

 

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

Instead of searching for ways to put more people on Medicaid, analysts should find and recommend policies to reduce the incidence of dual eligibles, the most costly Medicaid recipients who are also eligible for Medicare. Medicaid eligibility rules are already so generous and elastic they hardly restrict access to the welfare program’s LTC benefits, especially when Medicaid planning attorneys get involved. In 2012, I explained how to correct the problem in Briefing Paper #5: Dual Eligibles and Long-Term Care: How to Save Medicaid LTC $30 Billion Per Year and Pay for the “Doc Fix.”