Rhode Island Elder Care Lawyer Blog

“The Reinventing Medicaid Act 2015” Takes Direct Aim at Vulnerable Rhode Island Elders and their Families

On May 7th, the Governor introduced to the Rhode Island House and Senate Finance Committees amendments to her proposed budget. Titled “The Reinventing Medicaid Act of 2015”, this legislation contains twenty sections.

This post will focus on one of these–Section 6–which seeks to directly affect the limited opportunities for middle-class Rhode Islanders requiring Medicaid long-term care services to preserve some of their assets. The changes in this Section 6are all to Rhode Island General Laws §40-8-15 entitled, “Lien on Deceased Recipient’s Estate for Assistance”.

First, the Governor’s proposal seeks to expand “estate recovery” to assets passing outside the probate estate. Literally twenty years ago, in 1995, the State amended this section of the General Laws to conform with a federal law requiring states to put claims on the probate estates of deceased Medicaid recipients. The federal law, called “OBRA ‘93”, enabled the states to, if they chose, “expand” their estate recovery to non-probate assets.

The large majority of states chose, as Rhode Island did, to limit its estate recovery efforts to probate assets. This was the procedure utilized by the Department of Human Services for the next seventeen years.

In 2012, however, the State sought to expand its estate recovery to include non-probate assets. This would means, for example, that real estate held jointly by a mother in a nursing home on Medicaid with her adult son, which would ordinarily pass without a claim to the adult son, would now be subject to the State’s lien. Due to the dramatically increased efforts which would be required by the Department of Human Services to accomplish this “expansion”, as well as the House Finance Committee’s understandable distaste for adding any additional pain beyond that required by federal law, this proposal was roundly rejected by the House Finance Committee.

Also rejected in 2012 was a proposal by the State to put so-called “lifetime liens” on property of certain Medicaid recipients. Presently, as long as the Medicaid recipient declares an intention to return to his or her home, the home remains an exempt asset. While the home is potentially vulnerable post-death if it passes through probate, there is no impact during the life of the Medicaid recipient (unless the property is sold in which case the Department of Human Services needs to be notified).

In 2012, the House Finance Committee also rejected this effort to impose “lifetime liens”. It did, however, enact two statutes that provided additional protections to the Department of Human Services to prevent properties belonging to current or deceased Medicaid recipients from being sold without the Department’s notice.

Fast forward to May 7, 2015. In Section 6 of “The Reinventing Medicaid Act of 2015”, the current administration “doubles down” on the efforts made in 2012. Apparently unaware of the drubbing these proposals took by the House Finance Committee in 2012, the Raimondo administration has tried them again, adding to them an additional extraordinary provision which would allow the Department to collect interest at the rate of 12% per annum on its claims.

You read that right – 12%. Your CDs are not even getting 1%. The 10-year U.S. Treasury bill is getting slightly more than 2%.   But the Governor proposes that the State, unlike any other claimant in a probate estate, receive not only a statutory rate of interest, but a rate equivalent to that which a successful party in civil litigation would enjoy after obtaining a judgment.

But wait – there’s more!   Section 6 of “The Reinventing Medicaid Act of 2015” adds an entirely new section which would deal with eligibility for long term care Medicaid, not just estate recoveries. It attempts to graft onto the estate recovery provisions statutes—not regulations as currently exists—regarding asset transfers and eligibility requirements for long-term care Medicaid. And as an added bonus, it is a remarkably poorly written, referring to terms like “annuity”, “penalty period” nowhere defined in the Rhode Island General Laws.

On Tuesday evening, May 19th, I testified (video below) before the House Finance Committee in opposition to Section 6 of the Act. Some of the Committee members were the same Representatives who heard and rejected the previous attempt in 2012.

I am confident that the House Finance Committee and the House the Representatives as a whole will again reject this aggressive and unnecessary attempt by the State to add pain to Rhode Islanders who already have the misfortune of suffering from a chronic illness or condition requiring them to seek long-term care Medicaid benefits.