Get health care costs under control

To the editor:

Perhaps you have heard that Indiana’s Medicaid system is in deep trouble.

The state agency, the Family and Social Services Administration, which administers Medicaid for the state, under-budgeted Medicaid by $1 billion. 

The main cause is rising costs of nursing home care. It seems that our nursing homes have been taken over by the same health care corporations which are driving costs in our rural areas through the roof. They are demanding profits, which has led to the closure of rural hospital services across the state like the elimination of ER, surgery and inpatient services from IU Health Blackford. They are also demanding profits from nursing homes.

The legislature run by the Republican supermajority has pointed their fingers at the FSSA leadership, which of course was appointed by the Republicans in charge of the state government. For the immediate problem, part of the state’s budget surplus had to be used to pay for the billion dollar oopsie. But the long-term solution that has been proposed is very concerning to me and should be to you as well.

Back in March at a legislative update in Portland, State Rep. J.D. Prescott and Sen. Travis Holdman introduced the idea that to pay for the Medicaid error, people shouldn’t be able to shelter their estates from nursing homes in a legal protection called the living trust. (I have this discussion on video on my YouTube channel.) They want to make it easier for nursing homes to take estates. Many people have moved their properties to a living trust which, as long as the estate is there for five years, nursing homes can’t force people to sell off their family homes and property. 

Prescott and Holdman stated that there is no right for people to hand down their estate to their heirs. They say that it “isn’t in our politics or our DNA” to allow people to do with their estate what they want. I wonder if either ever have read John Locke, an English philosopher who Jefferson lifted much of the language in the Declaration of Independence from. The “natural rights” that Locke stated were “Life, Liberty, and Estate.” Estate is our political DNA.

And to further talk about the issue of the shortfall, what does this plan really do? It will mean that family farmers will have to sell their property, often property which has been in the same family hands for over a hundred years, the farm ground that their kids are currently making their living from. How does this help family farmers? 

And to the overall problem, it does nothing to curb the growing costs of nursing home care. Once the estates have been taken, what goes to pay that nursing home bill after that?

It seems that we should be much more focused on getting those health care corporations under control to provide needed care without insane profit.

John Bartlett

Hartford City