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Senior Citizen Politics
Clerk's Documents Show Law Changing Medicaid
Transfer Rules Never Passed House
By ElderLawAnswers.com
 September
19, 2006 - The Clerk of the U.S House of Representatives has added fuel
to the fire over the passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA).
The new revelations could end up burning the new law, which places
severe new restrictions on the ability of the elderly to transfer assets
before qualifying for Medicaid coverage of nursing home care.
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House Clerk Karen Haas released a chronology of
events and documents showing that the DRA, which
President Bush signed into law
February 8, 2006, never passed the U.S. House. Those documents were
filed in federal court August 25 by Alabama ElderLawAnswers member
attorney
Jim Zeigler, who has sued the
government seeking to overturn the DRA on the grounds that it is
unconstitutional.
Zeigler, who represents senior citizens seeking
nursing home eligibility, says the House Clerks documents are a
confession and admission that the act is not constitutional.
A discrepancy between the House and Senate versions
of the DRA apparently emerged when the Senate enacted a version of the
bill allowing Medicare to pay beneficiaries for oxygen care for 13
months, but the House passed a version allowing for a 36-month payment
-- an estimated $2 billion difference.
A Senate clerk later discovered the error and
changed the language to what the Senate originally approved. The Speaker
of the House and President Pro Tem of the Senate then certified the bill
as passed and sent it to the President for his signature, in apparent
violation of the constitutional requirement that before a bill can be
enacted into law by the President, it must pass both the House and
Senate in identical form.
The House Clerks documents were first released to
two members of Congress May 16. The two had requested information on
procedures by which the Senate passed one version and the House another
of the budget bill.
A copy of Zeiglers notice to the federal court of
August 25 and the document package of the House Clerk are available at
www.jimzeigler.com
Three other suits challenging the DRA have been
dismissed following motions by the government. Zeigler says the
admissions by the House Clerk dramatically improve my chances of getting
this illegal act nullified.
Zeigler objects to the act because of a change in
the start date of penalties against nursing home patients who made gifts
during the previous five years. When a nursing home resident drops
below $2,000 in savings and could qualify for Medicaid coverage, a
penalty is then inflicted requiring repayment for all gifting in the
past five years. There is no source of funds from which the patient can
pay for five years of gifting. This is the Put Granny on the Street
Law, Zeigler said.
>
For more on the controversy over the DRA at ElderLawAnswers.com,
click here and
here.
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