Friday, January 14, 2011

You may be responsible for your parent's bills

AARP had in interesting article in there monthly magazine about about Filial Laws.

It seems that some states can force the children of a parent (estranged or not) to pay for their parent's care if they are unable to. With Medicaid budgets growing tight, this law that had been obscure in many states is starting to draw attention. In Pennsylvania for example, some nursing homes are using the law to bill adult children for care provided to parents who failed to qualify for medicaid.

Lets examine a few possible scenarios:

Parent A qualifies for medicaid. Her bills are paid by the Government. If she requires long term or permanent nursing home care, no problem. Her son, the millionaire doesn't have to worry about his mothers bills.

Parent B does not qualify for medicaid because she has over $2500 in assets. So she struggles to pay for her monthly medicare and medigap payments. She is only covered for up to 100 days in a nursing home. Her son the truck driver with 5 kids, could find himself trying to reimburse the nursing home for costs not covered by medicare and medigap.

The full story is here.

To find out if you are living in a "Filial Law" state, check out the interactive map HERE. Be sure to click on your state's specific information.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did this law sneak in the books of these states.

It's one thing to help out your parents, but a law forcing you to, that's another matter.

No one should be forced to go into debt for anyone other than themselves.

zeke

BOSMAN said...

zeke, my feelings exactly.

It's one thing to look out for your parents and help them out when you can. It's quite another when the Gov't tells you you have to do it.

Throw in the unfairness of the A and B examples above, and you really have an injustice.

phil said...

I wonder why this has not received more press? What terrible laws.