In Act 42, the law was changed in such a profound way that the Department of Public Welfare has not yet been able to prepare regulations to implement all the changes. The most profound impact of these changes will be upon senior citizens who have a spouse needing nursing home care. Assets which might earlier have been preserved for the community spouse must now be spent to purchase an annuity naming the Commonwealth as beneficiary. This is a radical departure from prior law and practice. It will not affect the rich who will never qualify for Medicaid and it will never affect the poor, who will get it anyway. But it will have a disproportionate effect on the middle class and particularly middle class women whose husbands may need nursing care. By and large, they have less income from pensions or Social Security than their husbands, and will have to make do.  But then, those middle class senior-citizen women don’t have a bunch of lobbyists whispering into the ears of the legislators.

Or perhaps we ought to consider the provisions of Act 43, about which I have seen nothing in the press. This little piece of mischief re-establishes the obligation of the children of an indigent parent to provide support for the parent. During any 12 month period, the children may be held liable to the extent of six times the excess of the child’s average monthly income over the amount required for the reasonable support of the child and his or her dependents. Got that? It is now the law.

People who have been through the child support process at the court house (and those who have not) can all have another run through the process to find out how much they will have to provide for the support of their parents.

How did our local legislators vote on this one? Act 43 passed unanimously in the Senate. In the House, there were 198 affirmative votes and no negative votes. Three members in the House were absent from voting. They were Reps Ross,R-Chester; Rieger,D-Philadelphia; and Wheatley, D-Allegheny. Looks like all the local representatives were in favor of this one.

The pay increase will be a drop in the bucket compared with the potential grab money from the pockets of anyone in the state with a parent who receives Medicaid. And it is worth remembering that this crisis stems in large part from a $10 billion cut in federal Medicaid funding. We cannot afford the president’s war and tax cuts for all his cronies and still have enough to care for our senior citizens. Oh well, I guess the people are getting what they voted for. Thank God we will have the chance to choose again.

James R. Steadman, Esq.

Girard