Posted on 06/04/2009 8:33:58 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Did you know you could be responsible for your parents' unpaid bills? Thirty states currently have laws making adult children responsible for their parents if their parents can't afford to take care of themselves. While these laws are rarely enforced, there has been speculation that states may begin dusting them off as a way to save on Medicaid expenses, says SeniorJournal.com.
These laws, called filial responsibility laws, obligate adult children to provide necessities like food, clothing, housing, and medical attention for their indigent parents.
According to the National Center for Policy Analysis:
Twenty-one states allow a civil court action to obtain financial support or cost recovery. Twelve states impose criminal penalties on children who do not support their parents. Three states allow both civil and criminal actions. Generally, most states do not require children to provide care if they do not have the ability to pay. States vary on what factors they consider when determining whether an adult child has the ability to pay. Children may also not be required to support their parents if the parents abandoned them or did not support them.
The passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 made it more difficult to qualify for Medicaid, which means there may be more elderly individuals in nursing homes with no ability to pay for care. In response, nursing homes may use the filial responsibility laws as a way to get care paid for, says SeniorJournal.com.
Source: ElderLawAnswers.com, "States May Take New Look at Requiring Adult Children to Pay for Aging Parents; Boomers could get caught by laws already on books in thirty states," SeniorJournal.com, June 3, 2009.
For text:
http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Boomers/2009/20090603-StatesMayTake.htm
For more on State and Local Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=40
Don’t forget, back in the day when children took care of their parents as a matter of routine, two people would produce 6-12 children. In my particular situation, I’m an only child. How in the heck am I supposed to manage my two parents and my husband’s two parents? I don’t work (SAHM), that means that my husband’s one paycheck is supposed to provide for 6 competent adults. Insane.
Any idiot knows that the mind and the body probably won't last forever. Why didn't they plan for that? The Chinese put more than 50% of their earnings aside because they know they might need it someday. Are Americans too dumb to figure that out?
And why do we even have to figure out what to do with them in the first place? Why do we suddenly think that everybody looses IQ points and wisdom at 60? THEY ARE ADULTS, NOT INCOMPETENT CHILDREN. Give them some credit and at least view them with some semblance of dignity. Let them figure out their own solutions. Clean up their own mess. Get the heck out of their way.
All of these are excellent questions, but evade the problem entirely.
What do you do with the elderly who have not been provident or who, for some reason, are not able to look after themselves? Who looks after them if they cannot?
Yeah, force those Americans that have lost their jobs, had their salaries reduced, benefits lost, homes lost, investments decimated, and pensions cut to pay for this too.
lol
This will work out fantastic!
We have so many parents now who won’t pay the legally declared child support for their young offspring. Can you imagine trying to enforce this for supporting parents too?
Also it could be a bull market for Maury Povich and Co. as elderly parents try to prove their paternity/maternity to transfer debts to their kids.
Term
Care
Insurance
He argued that young people, who had previously felt an obligation to stay on the farm in order to take care of their aging parents and the family business, were "freed" of this obligation by the establishment of Social Security. Since the government was going to take care of the old folks, the young ones were free to leave. It was a social and demographic shift of immense proportions.
That was old America.
Today it's the old people that got the retirement pensions, and who hold most of the money.
Their kids on the other hand have watched their pensions and investments get mutilated, their homes are worth less than they paid for them, both mom and dad have to work just to make the mortagage if they still have homes, etc etc.
Nowadays it's the elderly for the most part, that have been helping their struggling kids who are now in their 40s and 50s that are losing their jobs, homes, investments, pensions, medical benefits etc, etc.
They are looked out for using the monies extracted from our paychecks every week via Social Security and Medicare taxes. Those things are consuming ever larger portions of domestic budgets, and will be insolvent by the time those of us who are currently paying are eligible. Hence, a bit of all-too-human resentment is bound to creep in when we get called selfish when we are already footing the bill.
None of this affects you one way or the other. So please stay on your side of the pond when it comes to internal US tax matters.
Looks like those ADULTS have a problem on their hands. *They* will have to figure something out. Society should not have to suffer for their foolishness.
If someone (family) makes the *choice* to be charitable to these people, that is a good thing. But one cannot force charity. Taking something from one person to give to another is *theft* and only breeds resentment.
Being a fool doesn't give you the right to take another's earned money.
Let me tell you when I make the exception. The disabled. If you were born disabled or disabled when you were too young to get your life together, you should be helped out by all of us.
But people who make no plans for retirement (or plan on letting the government care for them) get no sympathy from me.
This is like the people who put huge amounts of money on their “Emergency” credit cards for Christmas. They’re shocked that Christmas has come on December 25th (again!) and now they’re down to crunch time.
Grow up and start planning like an adult. If people feel moved to care for their elderly or to donate to charity to care for the elderly, that is to be encouraged. But if we demand it, people will come to depend on it.
> They are looked out for using the monies extracted from our paychecks every week via Social Security and Medicare taxes.
So translated, then, “The Gummint should.” Thanks for clarifying that.
> None of this affects you one way or the other.
If only that were true! Aren’t you aware that “when America sneezes we all catch the flu’?” Do you seriously think that the bucket-headed stupidity of Obama’s first 100 days has left the rest of the world unaffected? And that this and other US economic activities will be confined to your borders? If only!
One of the problems with being the Biggest on the block is that what you do has a profound effect on everyone else, unavoidably.
Have you explored the use of the shift key?
I have no problem with it.
Both parents are far more well-off than myself.
> Both parents are far more well-off than myself.
They probably won’t need help then, ay.
I know — and think about all the cases where it’s in question who treated whom badly — played out across Thanksgiving dinner tables annually, all across America. Will the state begin suing independent, childless people for parent support? Will parents sue their children demanding payments after spending down all the inheritance?
The entire Social Security idea is a HUGE mess. It's going to take us generations to fix the problem. We have massive numbers who've paid into the system who expect (rightfully) to be paid back. But we've cut our families back so that instead of 10 workers supporting one retiree, we're going to end up with one worker supporting many retirees. There is no way we can keep it up and that one program will be enough to destroy this country.
There are no easy solutions, but it just goes to prove (once again) that Socialism doesn't work.
I'm very afraid that the only way out is for our country to completely collapse, then be rebuilt from the ground up.
The elderly can teach children much of what has transpired in the world. They are living history books. For example, our grandparents who were alive in 1919 and saw women become eligible to vote or those of us who remember the first satellite being launched, Sputnik, in 1957, or man stepping on the moon for the first time in human history. There is so much, so very much... Some of us have taken care of their elderly parent and become better people for it. We should take lessons from countries were the elderly members of the family are not shuttled off to the back of beyond or mistreated. We should learn what family is again and we should being working to bring back the old values and morals.
The expect a lot of emails and pictures.
Otherwise, not so much.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.