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
The Good Book says - Honor thy mother and thy father.
It doesn’t say to do so if they were nice to you, or good parents, or even good people.
Yes, of course there are limits - molesters and abusers and the like - but part of the decline of the moral character of America is due to the notion that family is voluntary. Our children don’t listen to stories at Grandpa’s knee, marriages are convenience based, and even siblings are just people we see at Christmas.
I don’t think that the government has any business enforcing such a notion, but the moral basis of the law is Biblical and correct. We shouldn’t need the government to tell us to take care of our own, that’s the sad part.
OK, so my parents pay thousands into Social Security for 40 + years.
*We* also pay thousands into Social Security.
Then we have to pay our parents bills.
At the same time we have to support our own children and set money aside for our own retirement because we’ll never see a dime of Social Security for ourselves.
Am I getting this right?
At what point are our parents responsible for themselves? At what point does the government have to uphold it’s promise to give back the money our parents “invested” in Social Security?
It’s really hard for me to swallow the fact that my father ditched and left my mother to raise me by herself in poverty, then (after working my a$$ off to overcome that childhood) I’m somehow supposed to crap the money to provide a better life for them than they provided for me.
My mother has a nice home with her sister, food and reliable medical care. When I was a kid, we ate out of dumpsters. My husband and I are *rockin’* Dave Ramsey and are living our lives responsibly. We’re not counting on Government assistance and are setting ourselves up for a good retirement. Please explain to me why I have to pay for my parents’ (or *anyone’s*) poor life choices?
Perhaps it would be an incentive for the parents to instill some good values in their children such that they understand their biblical duty to care for their parents when they need it.
It seems this elderly woman had been declared dead. She woke up in the funeral home sometime prior to the cremation, climbed out of the casket and went home to her family.
They weren't exactly thrilled to see her, but sent her to the local government office to get herself undeclared. They wouldn't give her the food ration stamps because she had been declared dead. After making the rounds and unsuccessfully trying to convince the bureaucrats she was alive, she gave up, went home, concocted a sleeping tea and climbed back into the casket in the funeral home and went to sleep.
This is a horrible idea. Forcing them to pay for parents is a family destroyer. If kids are in a financial situation to afford it, they can help voluntarily. Families used to be like the Waltons. Big houses, everyone doing a part of helping each other with their needs.
That concept disappeared unfortunately.
ping
Neither one of them has any positive attributes. I'd leave the country before I let them suck me dry.
Before the American Revolution, debts against the crown could be collected from the debtor's offspring, regardless if the debtor's estate was insolvent. Essentially, if your old man was a dead beat, they could take your possessions to satisfy his obligations.
While not frequently discussed, or understood for that matter, this is one of the things that the colonialists rebelled against. And yet, 230+ years later, our own Imperial Federal government wants to bring it back. No thanks.
Yup. SS was just one of many pandora’s boxes of socialism opened in this country. Medicaid, medicare, etc. The list goes on and on.
As federal, state, county and city governments become more and more desperate to keep from utterly collapsing, this sort of thing will be done. And it will work somewhat, and for a very short time, much as the barricades put up by the citizens in Berlin in 1945 worked against the soviets for a very short time and really had no impact on the inevitable, other than to put the people out for a time as they built them.
We are an empire in collapse. It will very possibly be total - ancient Rome style.
Parents are already mandated by the state to take care of their children, right? So why is it a big leap to mandate that children take care of their parents.
I think I'll do that (on my own, thank you).
It's not up to the government to say so in any regard.
I’m sad to hear that for you.What kind of parent would abandon their own?
“Meanwhile we can’t even execute the guilty murderers sitting in prison. If they’re so hot to kill people, why don’t they start with them first. “
Then we can stop feeding them! There was a guy in a NY prison for 45 YEARS. I wonder how much the total taxpayer bill was for him?
Having a great time on our cruise. Have
you paid our utilities, cable, lawn & pool
maintenance bills yet? They were due last
week.
Love,
Mom & Dad
I don’t like state mandated anything anymore...
The state can’t take care of its own affairs, it needs to stop meddling in ours.
"Oh, Goody! I’ll have SIX adults requiring my mandated care and all of my money in the near future! Mom, Dad, Mom’s new husband, Dad’s new wife. Father-in-law and Mother-in-law."
Mrs. Bucket had a solution to a similar situation.
> Please explain to me why I have to pay for my parents’ (or *anyone’s*) poor life choices?
Because, in the case of your Parents, it is the right thing to do. Because it is an unselfish act of love (and in your case, forgiveness) that you can do for members of your family. Because it fulfills a wider obligation to look after the elderly, the weak, and the ill — and your parents may be all of those things one day — which is something that all good, honorable and decent people do, irrespective of their culture. That is what Jesus would want you to do. That is how Christians behave. It is a Biblical principle. It pleases God when we do these things, and angers Him when we do not.
Why should I have to pay for your parents' poor life choices?
LOL! Forgot about that scene. Very good! :)
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