Some Odd Thoughts on Medicaid and Procreation.

I suspect that if you are following this blog you are, if not financially secure, at least financially literate. But unforeseen medical issues can devastate the most cautious saver.  The prospect of being destitute and in need can be terrifying.

But lets do a what-if and think about this for a moment.  Lets say we come down with that debilitating desease that is going to cost a fortune, OUR fortune, and at the end of the day we will spend the rest of our days in a nursing home with no prospect of paying for it.  Thanks to the administration of Lyndon Johnson, there is a safety net that will not have us shivering under an overpass waiting for our kidneys to fail and the coyotes to carry our bones to their pups.  It is called Medicaid.  Just because you have some money now does not guarantee you will not need it some day.  Thank you, Lyndon, for this and so many other things.

Variations on this theme:  There are two of you, in a legally recognized marriage.  And, there is just one of you.  If there are two of you, in a legally recognized marriage, then the one not consuming assets for medical expenses is allowed to keep some assets, but not much - a house and a few dollars of financial assets.  Lots of complicated restrictions apply.  There are claw-back rules, so you can't just give away your assets to a caregiver and then collect medicaid.  The caregiver (family members, maybe) will have to give the money back.  Just doing the paperwork for applying for Medicaid is, I understand, "complicated".  And if you are not in a legally recognized marriage, then, well, what does that mean?

Bye the way, I have found a number of references to the subject of not just growing old alone without children, but growing old alone, period.  My perspective has always been as one who is a member of a stable couple who made a conscious decision to not have children very early in our relationship.

Listening to some of the Supreme Court arguments lately about the right to gay marriage, you might think that there are those who think WE have no moral claim on marriage, since we have shunned the prime rationale for ANY marriage - procreation.  But that is another topic.  This blog should be relevant to gay couples without children as well.