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Medicaid offices raid deceased homes to recover medical costs

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WASHINGTON (AP) – As Salvatore LoGrande battled cancer and all of the pain that comes with it, his daughters promised to keep him within the white house with the pitched roof that he worked so hard for many years ago.

So Sandy LoGrande thought it was a mistake when, a 12 months after her father’s death, Massachusetts billed her $177,000 for her father’s Medicaid expenses and threatened to sue over his house if she didn’t pay up quickly.

“Home was everything,” LoGrande, 57, told her father.

But the bill and its accompanying threat weren’t a mistake.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services constructing, April 5, 2009, in Washington, DC. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Rather, it was a part of a routine process the federal government requires of each state: recovering money from the estates of deceased individuals who, of their final years, relied on Medicaid, taxpayer-funded medical insurance for the poorest Americans.

An individual’s home is often exempt from qualifying for Medicaid. However, it’s subject to the estate recovery process for people who find themselves 55 or older and used Medicaid to pay for long-term care, similar to a nursing home stay or home health care.

This month, Democratic MP proposed completely abandoning the “cruel” program. Critics say this system collects too little – about 1% – of the greater than $150 billion in Medicaid spends annually for long-term care. They also claim that many states don’t warn individuals who join for Medicaid that their families could face large bills and claims on their estate after their death.

LoGrande says she became involved in a two-year legal dispute with Massachusetts after her father’s death. Just a few years before his death in 2016, she turned to an area nonprofit for advice on caring for her elderly father. The group suggested she enroll him in Medicaid. She even remembers asking a couple of home, but was assured that the state would only search for a house if it sent her father to a nursing home.

“He would never sign a contract for something that would put his home in danger,” she said.

For years, her father received an annual notice of profit renewal from the state’s Medicaid office. She says it wasn’t until after his death, when a state claim for $177,000 got here in, that she saw the primary bill for his care, which included a brief hospital stay for cancer pain, medications and hospice.

“That just blew my guts,” LoGrande said. “It was unfair.”

In 2019, the state reached an agreement with LoGrandes and withdrew its claims on the home.

State policies regarding this recovery process vary greatly, according to the 2021 Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission Reportwhich makes policy recommendations to Congress.

Some states place a lien – a right – on your private home, while others don’t. Meanwhile, some Medicaid offices try to recover all medical costs from patients, similar to doctor visits or prescriptions, while others simply recover long-term care costs. In recent years, Alaska and Arizona have foreclosed on just dozens of properties, while other states are foreclosing on 1000’s of homes price tons of of tens of millions of dollars.

New York and Ohio led the nation in such collections, recovering a complete of over $100 million in a single 12 months, Dayton Daily News investigation found.

Some investigation for the Kansas program, released Tuesday by the Health and Human Services Inspector General, found that this system was profitable – it brought in $37 million and only $5 million was spent recovering the cash. However, the state didn’t all the time collect money from eligible estates.

Last month, a foundation from one among the medical insurance industry’s largest giants called on Massachusetts to change its process for collecting reimbursements for many Medicaid costs, going beyond the federal government’s minimum requirements for recovering long-term care expenses. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts has really useful that the state legislature pass a bill that will prohibit such additional collections.

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Wealth recovery “can perpetuate wealth disparities and intergenerational poverty,” said Katherine Howitt, director of Medicaid policy at the muse.

In Tennessee, which recovered greater than $38.2 million from greater than 8,100 estates last 12 months, Imani Mfalme found herself in an identical situation after her mother died in 2021.

As her mother’s early-onset Alzheimer’s disease progressed, Mfalme continued to take care of her. But in 2015, when Mfalme was diagnosed with breast cancer and required a double mastectomy, she began to consider other options. She arranged a gathering at her mother’s house with the local Medicaid office. The representative told her to empty her mother’s bank accounts – money that Mfalme had transferred to her mother as a part of her assisted living payments – in order that her mother would qualify for this system.

She recalls feeling somewhat offended through the meeting when the representative asked her thrice, “This is your mother’s house?” The representative, Mfalme said, failed to mention that after her death, she may be forced to sell the home to settle her mother’s Medicaid bills.

Currently, Tennessee’s Medicaid office says she owes $225,000, and the state is looking for a court order requiring Mfalme to sell the home to repay the debt.

Imani Mfalme poses for a portrait outside her late mother’s home, Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Caitie McMekin)

Mfalme, now 42, said she wants to pay what she will, however the home is a selected problem. Her mother, a black woman, bought her dream home in Knoxville after she won a landmark discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, Boeing, for paying her lower than her colleagues.

“She fought hard for equal pay and equal rights. “Just seeing it torn away just because she was sick and I was sick is just devastating,” Mfalme said of her mother.

TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid office, said in an email to the Associated Press that it could not comment on specific cases.

A report by the Commission on Payments and Access to Medicaid and CHIP really useful that Congress repeal a 1993 law that required states to recoup money from estates, as a substitute making it optional.

Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois reintroduced laws that will have ended the mandate of the federal government. Schakowsky believes the rule is a lose-lose proposition for families who hand over their homes and taxpayers who don’t see much profit from recovery efforts.

“This is one of the most cruel and ineffective programs we see,” Schakowsky told the AP. “It’s a program that doesn’t work for anyone.”

In a deadlocked Congress, with some Republicans calling for limits on Medicaid eligibility, the bill is unlikely to gain the bipartisan support needed to change into law.

There is a minimum of one one who admits this rule doesn’t work: the person who created it.

Many people do not know in regards to the decades-old order, which was intended to encourage people to save for long-term care – otherwise they risk losing the equity of their home, explained Stephen Moses, who now works for the conservative Paragon Health Institute.

“The plan was to provide long-term care options for people who need long-term care, but you have to plan ahead to be able to pay privately so you don’t end up in a public health care program,” Moses said.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Branch members who face major challenges because of their stance on Israel have achieved their first victory. Here are other races to watch.

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Summer Lee, The Squad, Israel-Gaza War, theGrio.com

Has the team reached a turning point?

Branch members – progressive, Democratic members of color of Congress – face major challenges because of their stance on Israel. Pro-Israel groups like AIPAC and billionaire Republican donors are pouring in tons of money to disempower black social justice lawmakers who oppose U.S. support for Israeli apartheid and Palestinian genocide.

We are witnessing an enormous money operation purge democratic critics of Israelat a time of massive public outcry and outrage over what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

AIPAC focuses on Squad, as a pro-Israel lobbying group is predicted to spend 100 million dollars unseat those Democrats who urged President Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In a first test for progressive lawmakers, Rep. Summer Lee – the first black woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania – killed her within the Democratic primary. Lee won by 20 points over her centrist opponent, a city councilwoman from Edgewood, Pennsylvania Bhavini Patel.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pennsylvania, speaks during a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 21, 2024. (Photo by Nate Smallwood for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Patel, who positioned herself as a centrist Democrat, received financial support from Jeffrey Yass, a Republican Party businessman, TikTok and TruthSocial investor, and billionaire megadonor who supports public funding of private schools and conservative groups in Israel. Yass, now the biggest donor in your entire country within the 2024 electionsfunds Moderate PAC, a brilliant PAC that supports centrist Democrats like primary challenger Lee. Patel disavowed Yass’s support, which included over $600,000 sponsor advertisements that portrayed Lee as doesn’t support Biden because she criticized him.

One has to wonder why the Republican is getting involved within the Democratic primary and getting involved with Black people – specifically Summer Lee. Well, Yass also has relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and financed Netanyahu coupfaced with an attempt to take over Israeli courts mass protests.

Meanwhile, as AIPAC spreads its money amongst Democratic primary challengers, some members of the sphere may have a tougher re-election fight than Rep. Lee.

Elections

AIPAC is financing the campaign of Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a Democrat, who wants to unseat Rep. Jamaal Bowman in his New York district of Bronx and Westchester counties. Bowman is taken into account one of essentially the most defenseless progressives is running for Congress, and the district has been redrawn to represent more suburban Westchester.

AIPAC accounts for 42% of Latimer’s $1.4 million in total campaign contributions, according to data Interception.And a megadonor from Trump’s Republican Party organized a fundraiser for the candidate. The AIPAC donor even pushed for Jewish Republicans change party and vote against Bowman – a critic of Israel who has called for a ceasefire – within the Democratic primary.

Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush is outperformed and outperformed by her challenger Wesley Bell, St. County Attorney Louis. Bush, who has been one of essentially the most vocal lawmakers in Congress opposing Israel’s bombing of Gaza, warned supporters that AIPAC wants to buy a seat within the House. Thanks to AIPAC’s support, Bell has $1.1 million in money on hand, twice as much as Bush. One February poll showed Bell leading Bush 22 points.

Elected in a wave of progressive prosecutors after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Bell, who had been running to unseat GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, abruptly modified the race to run against Bush.

“I have become a target of AIPAC not only because I believe that Palestinians deserve to live freely and in peace as Israelis do, but also because I want to protect our democracy from Republican extremism.” – Bush he said New York Times.

“We proudly support Wesley Bell, who is a strong advocate for U.S.-Israel relations,” he said Marshall Wittmann of AIPAC“in stark contrast to his opponent, who represents the extremist anti-Israel extreme.” Bell criticized Republican Bush for saying Israel was engaging in “ethnic cleansing campaign” against Palestinians in Gaza, calling her statement “offensive” and saying: “I think we have to stand with our allies.” Bell promised to “stand by the president.”

While Republican Bush received donations from the NBA star Kyrie Irving the Dallas Mavericks and progressive groups resembling the Squad Victory Fund and Progressive Voices for Peace, Bell has received donations from quite a few billionaires, including donors related to Republican politics. For example, hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb – who supported Democrats like Barack Obama and Cory Booker – financed GOP politicians like Elise Stefanik, Kevin McCarthy, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

And Reid Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn and a Biden donor who financed Trump rival Nikki Haley, made the utmost donation to Bell.

Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) PAC endorsed Wesley Bell, claiming that Bush harbors “eternal hostility toward Israel.” DMFI PAC also endorsed Latimer within the New York race against Bowman. The pro-Israel group is spending a complete of $3 million on these two primary challengers to progressive black incumbents.

In Minnesota, Rep. Ilhan Omar also faces a challenge. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries — which one biggest contributor is AIPAC and which he was accused of hatred towards Netanyahu attending Funded by AIPAC trip to Israel with 24 Democrats within the House — yet he supports Omar and all Democratic incumbents. Omar whose daughter Isra Hirsi was arrested and suspended from Columbia University for participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment protest called AIPAC “right-wing super PAC” financed by “dark money”.

Omar, who squeaked by and won a primary against former Minneapolis city councilor Don Samuels, is with a bonus of 18 points Samuels in a rematch in 2024. Samuels says he doesn’t receive money from AIPAC, which he spent $350,000 against Omar in 2022, but says it can consider this feature if proposed.

At this point, teammates Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mas.) are secure. Pressley who did it evolved From pro-Israel position and now calling for a ceasefire was not serious opponent since her first victory in 2018, AIPAC has not taken any motion against her on this election campaign, according to “Polityka”..

In light of solid spending by AIPAC and others, greater than 20 progressive groups have joined forces to form “Reject AIPAC” This joint effort aims to challenge AIPAC’s campaign to silence “growing dissent in Congress” on Israel.

This growing opposition reflects the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – the US-funded industrial massacre of tens of hundreds of Palestinians, famine and the first genocide broadcast live on social media. Two-thirds of the electorateincluding majorities amongst Democrats, Independents and Republicans, called for a ceasefire in Gaza and half of Biden voters respondents consider that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.

AND majority of black Americans they need a everlasting ceasefire and conditional US military aid for Israel.

Palestine has grow to be a defining moment for human rights, social justice and freedom of speech this century. Pro-Gaza protests spill onto America’s streets and college campuses as Black students, scholars, clergy, community leaders, activists and others organize and speak out in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, facing arrest, suspension and the penalty for it.

And it’s on this context that the Israel Lobby, just like the NRA and others, is engaging in legalized bribery of politicians, pouring money into races to replace the bench with more compliant, moderate members of Congress – including compliant black lawmakers – who will comply with the billions of dollars going into Israel and who will support every little thing Israel does.


David A. Love, theGrio.com


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Vice President Harris’s Secret Service agent removed after brawl

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Vice President Kamala Harris, Secret Service


On Monday morning, a physical confrontation broke out between a US Secret Service agent assigned to guard Vice President Kamala Harris and other agents.

Before Harris was scheduled to reach at Andrews Air Force Base within the Washington region, a physical altercation occurred after the agent reportedly became confrontational towards co-workers, and in line with , the special agent in charge (SAIC) and the shift manager tried to defuse the situation.

“At approximately 9 a.m. on April 22, a U.S. Secret Service special agent supporting the vice president’s departure from Joint Base Andrews began exhibiting behavior that his colleagues found disturbing,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service’s communications chief, said in an official statement. The agent, who reportedly experienced what the Secret Service described as a medical episode, was eventually restrained, handcuffed and removed from duty to undergo a medical evaluation.

“The vice president was at the Naval Observatory when this incident occurred, and it had no impact on her departure from Joint Base Andrews,” Guglielmi added. Harris was scheduled to reach at Andrews Air Force Base following the incident.

“The U.S. Secret Service takes the safety and health of our employees very seriously,” Guglielmi noted. “As this was a medical matter, we will not be releasing any further details.” he said he was an agent identified as Michelle Herczeg. A source told the outlet that the behavior began when she allegedly took one other agent’s phone.

When the agent retrieved her device, her actions escalated to mumbling, hiding behind curtains and throwing objects. Agents on scene consider she was affected by a mental breakdown. As SAIC approached, the feminine agent, who reportedly still had her gun holstered, became physical. She allegedly beat her chest, pushed, attacked and hit her supervisor.

In 2016, during her tenure on the Dallas Police Department, she filed a $1 million gender discrimination lawsuit against the town, alleging that she was assaulted by a male officer and “was targeted as a female officer and treated less favorably.” .

Known because the leading global protective service, the Secret Service has the Vice Presidential Protection Division because the second most valued federal law enforcement task. According to the agency, no problems integrates rigorous training operational frameworks, skillful financial management, continuous workforce development initiatives and solid strategic planning processes. These key elements are typically headed by a cadre of administrative, skilled, and technical staff – skilled experts from quite a lot of fields reminiscent of accounting, analytics, law, engineering, information technology, project management, statistics, and plenty of other specialties.


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Florida prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a mother who allegedly forced her 3-year-old to drink bleach and blamed it on a “voodoo spell.”

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Florida Mother May Face Capital Punishment For Allegedly Killing Child

Prosecutors say a woman sentenced to prison for the death of a baby – whom she allegedly forced to drink bleach – could face the death penalty.

Joanna Zephir is accused forcing his 3-year-old and 8-year-old children to drink a chemical substance outside a church in Poinciana, Florida, in May 2022, WKMG reported. She is then said to have strangled the baby.

A Florida mother could face the death penalty for allegedly killing her baby
Joanna Zephir is accused of abusing her 3-year-old and 8-year-old children and her husband. Authorities say a child died after being forced to drink bleach. (WKMG/YouTube screenshot)

According to the report, the 38-year-old mother was facing an lively arrest warrant for the attempted murder and stabbing of her spouse just hours earlier. Therefore, she informed the relative that she would turn herself in to the police, but first she wanted to spend time with her children.

“She took both children and left the family member’s residence. A few hours later she called a family member and told her that she had killed her 3-year-old and that her 8-year-old was going to die too and then she was going to kill herself,” Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez said at a news conference. the conference at the moment.

When officers arrived at the scene, they found an unconscious child in the automobile, the outlet reported. They were all taken to hospital, where the 3-year-old was pronounced dead. The older child and her husband survived their injuries. According to WKMG ClickOrlando, Lopez said Zephir claimed the incident was the results of a “voodoo spell.”

Earlier this yr, a grand jury indicted her on one count of first-degree murder with a gun, making her “eligible for the death penalty,” according to the Ninth Judicial Circuit State’s Attorney’s Office announced on Tuesday, April 23. She was also charged with attempted armed murder and attempted first-degree murder with a weapon.

Prosecutors filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty, explaining that “the decision to seek the death penalty was based on statutory aggravating aspects, including the victim’s age of lower than 12 years, with the victim of a capital crime being particularly vulnerable because the defendant was in the exercise of family or guardianship authority over the victim and a crime punishable by death when the defendant was involved in committing or attempting to commit aggravated child abuse.”

Court records show her trial is scheduled for July, local news reports.

This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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