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Prepare to absolutely lose your mind as I give you the details in this next story. Here is in Raw Story. Iowa Medicaid hits at least two grieving families with $4 million bills. Oh boy, oh boy. I mean this is, this is an international embarrassment. That's what this is. This is shameful and deranged that this is how our country works. Here we go. Collection agents for the state of Iowa have sent letters seeking millions of dollars from the estates of at least two people with disabilities who died after spending most of their lives in a state institution. The amounts represent what Medicaid spent covering the residents care when they lived at the Glenwood Resource Center, a state run facility that closed last summer. The bills are extraordinary examples of a practice called Medicaid estate recovery. Federal law requires states to try to collect money after some types of Medicaid recipients die.
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The point is to encourage people to use their own resources before relying on the public program. But some states, including Iowa, are particularly aggressive about the collections. National reports show. Who the fuck has $4 million laying around to pay off a bill? Because you happen to have a family member who was extremely disabled or extremely sick and needed care basically around the clock. No, nobody has that. By the way, if you're making a list of things that the government should take care of, isn't this towards the top? Isn't this towards the top of like I, this is what I want my tax money going towards. I don't want it to go towards giving Netanyahu another 10 or $20 billion so we can bomb more babies. I want my tax money going towards stuff like this to look after our fellow Americans. All right, more. Joy Higgins was stunned by a letter she received a few weeks after her 41 year old daughter Kristin died last May.
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The letter was written on Iowa Department of Health and Human Services stationary. At the top in bold letters it said, re Kristen Higgins. Dear Joy Higgins, the letter read. Our sincere condolences to you as we understand the above person is deceased. The letter explained that any money Kristen Higgins left behind would have to be remitted to the state to help repay Medicaid's Jesus, over 4 million $4.2 million bill. Her family had 30 days to respond. Joy Higgins, who lives in Council Bluffs, wonders why state debt collectors would send a massive bill to the family of someone who. Someone like her daughter who had little income because of a severe developmental disability stemming from a premature birth. What are they gaining? That's my question. Except for kicking someone in the face right after they lost a loved one Higgins said. Kristen Kristen Higgins only income was a Social Security disability benefit of $1,105 a month.
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By the way, they want to cut that too. They want to cut that too. This is what Elon and Trump are working on. Remember they said tens of millions of dollars in fraud in Social Security Total fucking nonsense. It's literally 0.82 or 0.84% of Social Security is fraudulent. They're pretending like it's like half of the program. They want to cut shit like this. Most, most of that went directly to the state institution where she lived for more than 30 years. Just $50 was set aside monthly as an allowance for personal expenses, according to a state ledger of obtained by her family. They knew exactly how much she had, her mother said. When she died, Kristen's personal account had a balance of $2,239. The family put that money toward her funeral in allowed expense. Nothing was left for the state to take, Higgins said. Receiving the letter was traumatic, even though the family didn't have to pay the Medicaid bill.
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The Higginses have heard about similar attempts to collect from other families, including that of Eric Tomlinson, who died in 2020 at age at age 29 after spending most of his life at the Glenwood Resource Center. Shortly after his death, the Tomlin family received a Medicaid bill of more than $4.2 million. His mother, Susan Tomlin, was shocked by the letter. I was like, what? What? Oh my God, she recalled. She filled out a form explaining that the small balance in her son's personal account had gone towards his funeral. That's the last I heard of it. Supporters of state of a State recovery efforts say the rules encourage people to pay for their own care before applying for Medicaid, which is mainly intended to help those with little money. Critics of estate recovery programs say they often target families with little to give. Wealthier families tend to have lawyers who can structure estates in ways to avoid Medicaid repayment demands, the critics note.
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Like Higgins, Tomlin thought her Medicaid recovery bill came from the state officials because it was printed on letterhead from the Iowa Department of Health Human Services. So that was. That's fraud. The collections agency is basically committing fraud. The people who signed the letters identify themselves being from the estate recovery program, but the people who produce letters such letters work for private contractors hired to collect Medicaid debts, according to Alex Murphy, a spokesperson for the state agency. Their contract requires them to use stationary to use state stationary, Murphy said. An email to KKF Health news that such letters are sent after every death of an Iowa Medicaid recipient who is at least 55 years old or who lived in a long term care facility. He said the letters request information from family members regarding the deceased person's assets and expenses. And the letters note the repayments are expected only from the person's estate.
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Iowa Medicaid collections are. So anyway, it goes on here. But you know, when my dad passed away, we sort of had a similar thing going on where for his debt, they were trying to shake us down for it. And, you know, we knew that that was illegal, that we were under no legal obligation to pay off like our father's debts. But a lot of people might not know, right? And maybe there's somebody who gets a bill in the mail for 4,000 or 7,000 or whatever it may be, 312, and it's like they feel, oh shit, I gotta pay this. And they're like shaking down the poorest people at a time when they're grieving and they're committing fraud in pretending, oh, this is the state government that's asking for, like, what are we doing here now, by the way, this is. Okay, Medicaid. We're talking about Medicaid.
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Health care for low income people and disabled people. This is Medicaid. Well, remember guys, this is what the Republicans are planning. 20 million people could lose Medicaid coverage under House bill. The original bill had $880 billion in cuts. Like what? This is their ideology. This is their philosophy. That's what you need to understand. These are anti government fundamentalists. When it comes to every decent program that helps regular people, the only time they're okay with government is when they're taking the money for themselves. All the robber barons, all the billionaires, all the oligarchs, all. All the corporations give me subsidies Socialism for me but not for thee and think about how low you have to be to say whatever meager social safety net we have, like Medicaid, let's destroy that shit. So anyway, this is what a failed country looks like, by the way. This is what a failed country.
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Medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Number one. Other developed countries don't have medical bankruptcy. It's not a thing. It's not a thing to have a medical bankruptcy in any other developed country. It's just not. And so, by the way, if you're trying to make America great, wouldn't like thing number one be, hey, let's catch up to the rest of the world. And have universal health care. Instead of having 45,000 to 60,000 deaths every year because we don't have basic health care. Instead of having tens of millions of people who don't have health insurance wouldn't like one of the first things be we gotta give healthcare to everybody. We should just expand Medicare to cover everybody. But no, they're not actually trying to make America great. Duh. They're trying to serve the robber barons. Serve the robber barons. And Trump wants his name in the history book.
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So he's going full 1800 style imperialist and he's threatening to annex Canada and steal Greenland and take Panama and do war with Mexico and. Depraved, man, depraved. We got to bring this country back to sanity, bro. What should our politicians be focusing on? Our politicians should be focusing on improving our lives. How would you improve the lives of the American people? It would be something like universal healthcare. It would be something like we're going to give you paid vacation time by law. It would be, you know, hey, you increasing unionization rates by passing the pro act, raising wages. But they're not working on any of that shit. In fact, the Republicans are literally doing the opposite. MAGA is literally doing the opposite. Let's take health care away from more people. Let's cut Medicaid, let's cut Medicare, let's cut Social Security. Let's eliminate the anti scam police, the cfpb.
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Let's destroy the Department of Education. So expect a lot more of this shit. Expect a lot more of this grieving families being hit with medical bills for $4 million. Because it's gonna happen. Hey, y'all do me a favor and like and subscribe. It helps out big time in the algorithm. Click the bell as well for notifications when videos drop. And watch that video on screen right now. You know you want to.