The cost of Medicaid annuities.
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.
Levy
Robert A
RA
CNA Corporation, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. levyr@cna.org
Nyman
John A
JA
Gabay
Mary
M
Riley
William
W
Feldman
Roger
R
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