According to Leslie Sleeper Madge (2005), Medicaid has the right to recover money it paid on a recipient’s behalf for all the benefits paid after age fifty five. The recovery is however limited to the recipients probate estate after his death and only if there is no surviving spouse or children under 18 or disabled child of any age. As per Kaiser (2006), to also help cub this problem, the Medicaid put in place by the congress should be implemented to assist the aging people as well as providing sufficient health care for the aged.
The State should also ensure that there is creation of more private nursing homes for people who can afford them so as to create more space for the poor in public nursing homes. States should also limit the number of nursing homes to see to it that the beds in those homes are filled in order maximize the available space. There is also the need of making sure that all required facilities and care are available to the elderly.
Thus the call for government to change the trend of taking elderly people’s property to cater for their Medicare in the nursing homes demands everybody’s effort from policy makers altering the policies to suit the aging’s needs, to the public coming up with more accommodative approaches for caring their elderly citizens. This would make care for the aging available at affordable costs that would not hurt their social securities. One of the main pillars of the United States is the equality principle and the right of every citizen to fair treatment.
The aged are no exception to these principles and it would only be fair if they are accorded fair treatment if only as appreciation to the contributions they made to the society in their lifetime. The government should therefore come up with a care policy which gives free medical care to the aged and protects their hard earned properties from being auctioned to pay for the financial needs. To reduce the numbers in the homes for the age, Brant (1991, p. 59) argues that the government should give incentives to family members to care for their aged like giving them allowances for the upkeep of the aged and money to pay for the care givers if the family can not afford it. It is also the duties of the families to take on the role of caring for their aged family members instead of shipping them out to the homes for the aged. This will not only help in decongesting the homes but creating room for the ones who do not have families to take care of them.
I believe the aged should be valued as much as they were in their productive years and the right treatment accorded to them. In order to meet the growing needs of the elderly for long term care facilities, the US Department of Health and Human Services had asked states to look at community-based alternatives for nursing home residents who do not need full care. This is one of the reasons for the rise inassisted-living facilities (Harold Rubin, 2008)
References
Brant, A. B. , (1991), Suicide among the Elderly in Long-term Care Facilities, Westport CT: Greenwood Press. p. 59 Kaiser, J. H. , (2006), Study of Nursing home Disasters, Viewed on 31st March 2009, < http://www. kaisernetwork. org/dailyreports/healthpolicy > Keigher, A. S. , (1992), Wages for Caring: Compensating Family Care of the Elderly. Mahwah NJ: Praeger Publishers. pp. 108-109. Madge, S. L. , (2005), Medicaid Eligibility for Nursing Home Costs, Viewed on April 1 2009, http://www. madgelaw. com/Medicaid%20Eligibility. pdf