title: The cost of Medicaid annuities.
abstract: Medicaid annuities are annuities that long-term care recipients use to shelter assets, thereby qualifying them early for Medicaid eligibility. As such, these annuities have the potential to increase Medicaid costs. This study estimates the cost of annuities to the Medicaid program. From a sample of Medicaid applications in five states, we found the rate at which annuities were used and simulated their cost to Medicaid. We estimated that in 2004, Medicaid annuities cost Medicaid about 197 million dollars, which represented a small proportion of Medicaid's almost 50 billion dollars cost for nursing home care.
authors.affiliation: CNA Corporation, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. levyr@cna.org
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Nyman
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gabay
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Riley
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Feldman
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D004608:Eligibility Determination; D006801:Humans; D007449:Investments; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000191:economics*; D008484:Medicaid / Q000191:economics*; D013221:State Health Plans / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States