Taxing the frail elderly

[Brat]

Excuse me while I scream about Oregon’s Long Term Care Facility Tax.  What Oregon is doing is taxing its private pay care facilities to pay for those who are on Medicaid in care facilities.  The state isn’t paying facilities for the cost of care of Medicaid recipients; the revenue derived is being used to make up the difference.

The only facilities that are exempt are nursing facilities that are part of Continuing Care Retirement Communities and facilities in which a very high percentage of the residents are Medicaid clients.

I suppose this is no different than what is happening in health care today.  Those who are insured or who pay for their care are charged more because so many are uninsured and unable to pay for needed health care.

Mother did without many of the nicer things in life to be able to live comfortably at the end.  Her resources are now being depleted at an ever-increasing rate because her care facility must pass on the tax.  She is paying for the failure of others who didn’t plan as well.  Arahhhhh……

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I find that in the rare case that one does for themselves, it simply confuses the legislature who operates on the overall presumption that everyone is a zero forward planning idiot. So they find a way to siphon away what the individual has managed to gather by planning. Maybe its a huge social experiment to see what happens when you virtually remove the benefits of planning to take care of yourself and live your life prudently and throw it all to the people who did whatever they felt like until they fell down.

We're certainly 'fixing' the darwinian principles...