**Medicaid Estate Recovery Program **
This Law takes the home and personal property of low income individuals over 55 upon death, who either sign up or are placed on Medicaid due to an inability to pay hospitalization costs to repay Medicaid .
Medicaid is free to illegals and those under 55. US senior citizens who have paid taxes their entire lives are the only demographic required to repay Medicaid and should not have their family homes taken and sold to reimburse the states.
Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) is the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) of 1993
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Plus they won’t tell you how much they paid in premiums so you have NO idea how much they’ll take from your estate.
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It also messes with inheritance and family estate planning as it incentivizes ensuring people with “Medicaid Debt” never receive any money or meaningful assets to their name.
Does anyone have any statistics on what percentage of costs MERP recovers on a net basis (amounts recovered versus cost to operate the program)? Or what increases in fraud/abuse might happen if the MERP deterrent was removed?
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Currently going through this. My husbands grandfather has dementia and we had to place him in a nursing home after his grandmother just passed away. He owns his home outright. It has been in the family for 3 generations and we have to prepare for the state to take it when he passes. We had hoped to live there
That the govt allows this is beyond disgusting. It’s clear anyone who needs to use Medicaid is having issues with being able to afford access to healthcare. So suffering all your life with money problems, how evil that the State is right there at the end with one hand out and another hand with a weapon in it. These people are worse than anyone in the “outfit.” They are the true criminals.
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Also, senior citizens need to have easier access to Medicaid when it’s needed. I was actually told by a DHHR employee that if I was a different demographic I would have no problem getting help.
I’m afraid to go to the hospital. I can’t afford what the bill would be that Medicare doesn’t cover.
We Senior Citizens need help now!