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Suozzi: Well-off families can pay nursing tabs

BY MICHAEL ROTHFELD | Newsday Staff Writer

April 11, 2006

New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is seen after a fundraiser at the Glen Oaks Country Club in Old Westbury. (Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile / February 15, 2006)

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi yesterday called for overhauling a state law that permits senior citizens to place ailing spouses in nursing homes at taxpayer expense while preserving their inheritances.

Suozzi, who is running for governor on a platform of reforming Medicaid - the federal, state and local health care plan for the poor - said Nassau since 2003 has recovered $2.5 million the program paid on behalf of 283 people who could have afforded the nursing home services themselves.

"People want their parents', their grandparents' and their spouse's inheritance and they want the government to pick up the bill," Suozzi said at a news conference in Mineola.

The provision, called "spousal refusal," stems from a 1988 federal law allowing senior citizens to receive long-term health care from Medicaid if husbands or wives abandon them. But only in three states - New York, Florida and Connecticut - has corresponding legislation authorized coverage when spouses refuse to pay. Other states require spouses to spend their money down to $99,000 before Medicaid pays.

While refusing to pay is legal in New York, critics say some senior citizens have taken advantage of that provision, and government agencies can try to recoup the money. Suozzi said Nassau has sought repayment from nine "millionaires."

"I don't have millions - I wish I did," said 85-year-old Theresa Menkes, of Port Washington, who is being sued by Nassau County for $84,156.37 paid by Medicaid for her late husband Harry's nursing home stay between Oct. 8, 2001, and May 25, 2003.

The county lawsuit, pending since last year in State Supreme Court, contends Menkes had $1.8 million in assets, excluding her home. Her lawyer, Richard Feldman of Great Neck, disputed the amount, although he conceded she had invested some savings in a new house. He said she spent $40,000 before refusing to pay.

"If the law allows you to do it, you do it," Feldman said.

Suozzi said he supports eliminating the provision along with other legislative changes - including increasing the amount of money a spouse could keep before Medicaid pays, to $250,000 or $500,000. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, favors keeping spousal refusal because most cases are legitimate, said Christine Anderson, a campaign spokeswoman. But he endorses reform to prevent "flagrant abuses," she said. Suozzi and other critics say laws allowing middle-class Americans to receive taxpayer-subsidized nursing home care discourage cost-effective alternatives, such as long-term health-care insurance.

"The problem is that nobody worries about long-term care because it's basically been a free good all these years," said Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform, an advocacy group in Seattle.