Medicaid or Medicare

[Guest guest]

Medicaid is a state-federal program for low income, Medicare is a

federal program for elderly & disabled. Welfare checks are a different

issue.

In Iowa a person whose spouse goes into a nursing home on Medicaid (the

biggest group of Medicaid recipients in IA) gets to keep their house,

car and certain other things, but does have to sell or give other assets

to the state, going back 3 or 5 years, I don't remember. Each state has

its own program. I'm not familiar with TX's.

Remember " state or federal aid " is taxpayers' money. Taxpayers aren't

interested in paying for a resident's long term care and letting that

resident keep her/their farm/business, savings account, stocks, etc. for

her/their heirs. Here the person that really gets stuck is the

surviving at-home spouse, usually a woman with no pension of her own

except maybe Soc. Sec.(Many male at-home spouses have military or

company pensions besides Soc. Sec.to live on) If her husband is in a

nursing home on Medicaid, his Soc. Sec. and pensions go toward his

care. She may have a house and car, but the typical spouse in that case

has a very small Soc. Sec. check due to working in low wage jobs, opting

out of the job market to care for children or family members. She's

left destitute for living expenses and cannot get welfare unless she

" spends down " her assets, ie. sells her house and car, proceeds of which

would probably go to the state for her spouse's care, then apply for aid.

Also on welfare to unwed mothers, don't forget - it takes 2 to Tango.

For every unwed mother, there's a man out there somewhere who has equal

responsibility in caring for his child. Some men assume this

responsibility as caring, supporting fathers. Most don't. Don't place

all the blame on the mother who usually ends up with the child. I've

worked with welfare issues a lot and it's much more complicated than

" not wanting to work. " One small example. If a young unskilled mother

goes to work at a Mc's or Wal-Mart, let's say, she will have

irregular, undependable hours, low pay, no benefits, no childcare and

probably no transportation. Then if she makes just a bare minimum in

wages, she loses part or all of her welfare benefits. In many states

the incentive in welfare is to stay on it, not work to get off it, esp.

if she is penalized for earning money. Not enough good paying jobs are

available to her because of education, transportation and child care

issues to mention a few. I worked with a university on a federal-state

grant to get low income women into better paying jobs. The only way a

woman could make it on that program was to have a child if she didn't

have one, or have another if she already had one. It was so senseless

and frustrating that I quit.

my 2 cents.

Bev in Iowa