Proposal to Increase Anti-Impoverishment Protections for Community Spouses Introduced in Connecticut

One of the declared purposes of modern federal law setting threshold standards for eligibility for Medicaid for long-term care is “protection of the community spouse” from impoverishment.  At least that’s a declared objective of amendments to federal law, passed by Congress in 1988. As one of Dickinson Law’s Elder Protection Clinic clients once observed, “slower” impoverishment isn’t the same as protection. States have choices to make within federal guidelines about minimum and maximum sums, about how much money community spouses can keep when their loved ones apply for Medicaid for long-term care.

In Connecticut, there is new legislation proposed, aimed at increasing the level of protection of community spouses in that state.  As described in a recent article from the Hartford Courant: 

Allowing the spouse of a person in a nursing home to keep enough money to live on independently is, in many ways, a moral issue. But in a tight budget year in Connecticut, it’s a fiscal issue.

 

A proposal that would increase the minimum assets that a spouse living in the community can keep – from $23,844 to $50,000 – in order for his or her partner to be eligible for Medicaid nursing home care is being backed by elder advocates, who say the increase would help seniors, especially women, remain able to live independently. But the move is being opposed by the Department of Social Services on the grounds it will shift millions in costs to the state-funded Medicaid program.

 

The proposal would affect couples with combined assets of between $23,844 and $100,000….

It will be interesting to see whether this bill has traction, and whether other states are also willing to step up to the financial plate.