I spoke with the owner and am meeting with him on Monday for coffee (I network with lots of "financial folks"... CPAs, stock jocks, RM guys, trust lawyers, etc.) just to get to know each other and see if we have mutual interests, etc.
He is NOT insurance licensed (so he said) and claims to have a strategy to somehow bypass the Medicaid spend-down rules.
Anyone have an idea of what his magic is? I'd like to know before I sit down with him.
Re: Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?Go to Top
Originally Posted by GreenSky
How can anyone be opposed to spending down to get on medicaid and at the same time support single payer?
Rick
So you can have your cake and eat it too? Get the coverage and keep your assets?
This is from the site's FAQ:
Aren't Goverment benefits welfare?
We believe they are not welfare, but healthcare. You’ve paid into the system throughout your lifetime. Would you consider your Social Security to be welfare? We think it’s the same argument.
Re: Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?Go to Top
Actually, the FAQ I found interesting was:
Do I have to lose control of my assets now in order to preplan? There are many options available in order to protect your assets and still qualify for benefits. We will work with you to make sure we accomplish your objectives.
Of course, they dodged the answer entirely.... In short, they are going to setup an irrevocable trust where you have no control, hope you survive long enough (3 years, I think) till you need benefits, and call it good.
Not a lot of magic to this, but it doesn't always turn out the way people think. Giving up control of your estate isn't easy, and hopefully, the trustee does with it as you would like. If they don't, oh well.....
Re: Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?Go to Top
Originally Posted by GreenSky
How can anyone be opposed to spending down to get on medicaid and at the same time support single payer?
Rick
I've yet to figure out how anyone can all themselves a true anti-government conservative (either Rep, Dem, Lib, or whatever)... and still accept Medicare and Social Security... and send their kids to public school.
Seems to me that if you favor the idea of government keeping out of the economy and only doing those functions best left to government (fire, police, military, infrastructure funding, etc.) that you would support the end of Medicare and have it all privatized, similar to how many of you proposed that SS be in the first year of the second Bush term (and how would that have worked out given the past 18 months?)
Re: Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?Go to Top
Originally Posted by al3
I've yet to figure out how anyone can all themselves a true anti-government conservative (either Rep, Dem, Lib, or whatever)... and still accept Medicare and Social Security... and send their kids to public school.
I am in favor of privatizing social security and medicare - along with public schools that cost much more than what can be had in private schools.
And yes, there is a way to get out from under these programs. I suggest anyone interested google Harry Browne for an explanation. There is no way that these ponzie schemes can exist in the long run.
Obviously we won't get rid of public schools so I would be inclined to offer a vocher system where a student could go anywhere he/she wants. Schools would then compete with each other.
As far as the hypocracy of selling medicare plans, yes I agree but as a good capitalist I will take advantage of a bad system the same way that someone (maybe Al) who is in favor of single payer will sell health insurance.
Re: Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?Go to Top
Originally Posted by GreenSky
Obviously we won't get rid of public schools so I would be inclined to offer a vocher system where a student could go anywhere he/she wants. Schools would then compete with each other.
As far as the hypocracy of selling medicare plans, yes I agree but as a good capitalist I will take advantage of a bad system the same way that someone (maybe Al) who is in favor of single payer will sell health insurance.
Rick
I agree with Rick. I've long favored a voucher system for schools. I thought we had a shot at it with Bush, but he chickened out with his No Child Left Behind program. Fortunately there are many, many affordable "better" alternatives to public schools.
No so with health care. Of course I don't really expect "true conservatives" to NOT take Medicare... because there is really no alternative. Very few people who are no longer working could afford healthcare with Medicare. (Just as it was in 1963 when it was passed.) And besides, I can make a case the YOU paid into it and you SHOULD get a return on your money.
I too am a capitalist... but I don't think it is efficient to have competing power plants or to have competing fire stations (which used to be the case in NYC) or competing police forces. When the private sector fails, the public sector has to step in. Left to their own devices the private health insurance companies simply do not serve the greatest good for the greatest number. That would be fine if they were making cereal or autos... but this is life and death we're talking about.
I know most of you could care less about the 40 million people who live in fear of getting sick and losing all their hard earned savings, and you ascribe it to their own lack of responsibility. I look at it differently. I'm willing to pay higher taxes for a better "overall" society. If it means the some fat, smoking, welfare mother gets her appendix taken out at my expense, saving her life, I'm OK with it... especially if it means that the hard working waitress at the Denny's I go to each Thursday morning at 6:30 am for my Toastmasters meeting won't lose her meager retirement savings if she gets cancer.
If the private sector could make that happen, I'd be fine with it. But just as in 1963 when older citizens were losing their homes and pensions to medical costs, the private sector today has not been able to overcome its own greed factor. We instituted Medicare back then and I don't see any mass movement to abolish it. I believe that if we go to single payor for IFP, that while there will be grumbles, in the end we will have a better society as a result.
My advice to you is this. Learn how to prospect, market for, and sell LTCI. It will be another generation before the government tries to fix what is sure to be another social dilemma... how to (ware)house and care for a society that lives way past 100.
Re: Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?Go to Top
My advice to you is this. Learn how to prospect, market for, and sell LTCI. It will be another generation before the government tries to fix what is sure to be another social dilemma... how to (ware)house and care for a society that lives way past 100.
This WILL be the next social delimma-- and LTC will face the same issues as current day healthcare reform. What happens now, will be the model (for, or against) what will be done for the future post-productive seniors... To think that "underage" healthcare is the ONLY issue is very short sighted... This is what is looming.
------------------------------------ "Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others." Ambrose Bierce
Strategy to Avoid Medicaid Spend-down? Huh?
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