Want Free Long-Term Care? Try Medicare Part G.

A. Sure . . . if you’re an older senior citizen and can no longer take care of yourself, the government says there’s no Nursing Home care available for you. So, what do you do? You opt for Part G. Part G gives anyone 65 years or older a gun (that’s Part G) and four bullets. You are allowed to shoot four politicians. This means, of course, that you’ll be sent to prison where you’ll receive three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating air conditioning, cable TV, library, and all the care you need. Need new teeth? No problem. Need glasses? That’s great. Need a hearing aid, new hip, knees, kidney, lungs, sex change, or heart? They’re all covered.

• Private Nursing Home Care: In the last five years, a handful of states have tried to contract with private nursing homes to care for some of their elderly and disabled inmates under so-called “medical parole” programs that allow prisoners to receive care outside of a prison while remaining in state custody. But few private facilities have been willing to accept the prisoners. 
• Special Facilities in Certain States for Senior Inmates: Some states have resorted to building new nursing facilities within or outside prison walls. In California, a 1,700-bed prison is being constructed to house medically infirm prisoners. New York opened a special prison unit for the cognitively impaired at its Fishkill facility. Most of the prisoners in the unit suffer from dementia. Washington state has an assisted living unit at one of its prisons. Connecticut, Michigan, Kentucky and Wisconsin are trying a different approach. Instead of attempting to place prisoners in nursing home beds next to someone’s elderly parent, the states are asking the commercial nursing home industry to provide a facility that would accept prison inmates and patients from the state mental hospital who required long-term nursing care.
• Exercise for Senior Prisoners: In Nevada, the “True Grit” program has helped reduce infirmary visits for about 200 prisoners by offering music and art therapy and physical exercise, including wheelchair basketball.
• Early Release for Seniors: Other states, such as Louisiana, have passed laws making it easier for some elderly prisoners to be released after a parole hearing at which their risk for committing future crimes is assessed. Releasing some older prisoners early could shift the cost of their care from states to their family members, and make them eligible for federal programs like Medicaid, experts say. However, courts and communities have tended to resist so-called “compassionate release,” which cuts short the sentences of elderly or dying inmates so they can spend their last days on the outside.

The Medicaid program is our country’s largest health and long-term care insurer, covering one in six Americans, including two-thirds of nursing home residents and one in five persons under 65 with chronic disabilities. Do you have a loved one who is in a nursing home or nearing the need for nursing home care? Or are you simply looking to plan ahead in the event nursing home care is needed in the future?   Life Care Planning and Medicaid Asset Protection is the process of protecting your assets from having to be spent down in connection with entry into a nursing home, while also helping ensure that you or your loved one get the best possible care and maintain the highest possible quality of life, whether at home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home. Learn more at the Fairfax and Fredericksburg Elder Law Firm of Evan H. Farr, P.C. website. Please call us in Fairfax at 703-691-1888, in Fredericksburg at 540-479-1435, in Rockville, MD at 301-519-8041, or in Washington, DC at 202-587-2797 to make an appointment for a no-cost consultation.