Op-Ed

This is Reform? California Wants to Let Its Billionaires Go on Medicaid

By Mark J. Warshawsky

The Hill

August 07, 2023

Politicians and investigative journalists have long complained about the billionaires that have no taxable income and pay no taxes despite their wealth. In response, politicians have advanced many constitutionally dubious proposals to tax wealth on grounds of equity and fairness.

It is odd, then, that there has been so little attention paid or protest given to the pending proposal in California — phase II of its 2021 reform — to strike all asset testing for those above age 65 in determining eligibility for long-term care benefits from Medicaid.

Lest anyone dismiss this as another crazy California idea that will never be enacted, like universal state government health insurance and racial reparations, this Medicaid expansion proposal is well on its way to approval, part of a series of incremental steps over the last several years that have already loosened Medicaid eligibility standards.

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