“New Eligibility Rules Are a Financial Salve for Nearly 2 Million on Medi-Cal”

“New Eligibility Rules Are a Financial Salve for Nearly 2 Million on Medi-Cal,” by Bernard J. Wolfson, KFF Health News

“Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who are aged, blind, disabled, in long-term care, or in the federal Supplemental Security Income program, faced limits on the value of financial accounts and personal property they could hold to qualify for coverage. Now, nearly 2 million of them will no longer face these restrictions, putting them on par with the roughly 12 million other Medi-Cal beneficiaries who don’t have asset limits. Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who are aged, blind, disabled, in long-term care, or in the federal Supplemental Security Income program, faced limits on the value of financial accounts and personal property they could hold to qualify for coverage. Now, nearly 2 million of them will no longer face these restrictions, putting them on par with the roughly 12 million other Medi-Cal beneficiaries who don’t have asset limits.”

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

California’s opening the floodgates to Medi-Cal for the affluent does not solve the program’s problems. For example, according to the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR): “Over the past 5 years, one of the most disturbing violations of state and federal laws has been the increase in discrimination against Medi-Cal beneficiaries who need nursing home care.” What inviting the wealthy onto welfare does do is consume resources that should go to making Medi-Cal a better program for people in need. Longstanding rules that help the affluent qualify and obtain the best care is why critics complain Medicaid, and now especially Medi-Cal, is “structurally racist.” To make sense of what ails LTC, read the Paragon Health Institute’s “Long-Term Care: The Problem” and “Long-Term Care: The Solution” and watch this “virtual LTC event” featuring age wave visionary Ken Dychtwald and leading LTC researchers.

Stephen A. Moses, President