As Salvatore LoGrande fought cancer and all the pain that came with it, his daughters promised to keep him in the white, pitched roof house he worked so hard to buy all those decades ago.
So, Sandy LoGrande thought it was a mistake when, a year after her father’s death, Massachusetts billed her $177,000 for her father’s Medicaid expenses and threatened to sue for his home if she didn’t pay up quickly.
“The home was everything,” to her father said LoGrande, 57.
But the bill and accompanying threat weren’t a mistake.
Rather, it was part of a routine process the federal government requires of every state: to recover money from the assets of dead people who, in their final years, relied on Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded health insurance for the poorest Americans.
This month, a Democratic lawmaker proposed scuttling the “cruel” program altogether. Critics argue the program collects too little — roughly 1% — of the more than $150 billion Medicaid spends yearly on long-term care. They also say many states fail to warn people who sign up for Medicaid that big bills and claims to their property might await their families once they die.
I personally been learning this lesson recently. Everything you own every single thing should have some kind of transferable or payable on death added to it. Every car every house every bank account every brokerage account Etc…
That’s the way it is in Canada, but it’s easier on your family if you have a will. Otherwise it’s a mess.
The best thing is all your debts (in your name only) are wiped clean. Anything with spouse’s names on them (mortages, shared credit cards, etc) gets transferred to the surviving spouse.
And although our healthcare is in shambles atm (because our provincial premiers are selfish, power-hungry dumbfucks) very few Canadians face the soul-crushing heathcare costs Americans do.
I feel for you all. I can’t imagine having to choose to live or die based on how much I have in the bank.