Medicaid Fraud Ill-Received

I applaud Liz Pulliam’s column on widespread white-collar fraud in qualifying nursing-home patients for Medicaid [“Long-Term-Care Dilemma,” Money Talk, Oct. 3].

I choked when my own church sponsored a seminar advising our parishioners on how to do this.

Having worked for the SSI program, I know how hard the federal government is on poor individuals who violate the highly complex rules of that program. Then to see my friends and neighbors in the middle-class community where I live make snide remarks about welfare cheats while they hire attorneys to whitewash what is basically white-collar welfare fraud is almost too much to bear.

My husband and I dealt with nursing homes for 13 years from 1983 to 1996 as three of our parents were nursing-home patients at one time or another. Our parents were not wealthy, but we never had to resort to Medicaid.

Fortunately, we found honest attorneys and financial planners who were as committed as we were to keeping them self-supporting. Occasionally, we pulled a few dollars from our own pockets to cover cash-flow problems, but it was done with pleasure and did not begin to repay our parents for the sacrifices they made for us.

Interestingly, none of the professionals we dealt with charged our parents their full fees.

The idea of making one’s parents paupers to preserve an inheritance is sickening.

MARY JARMUSCH

Fairview Park, Ohio