Impact of Deficit Reduction Act of 2005

Michael Gilfix (principal, Palo Alto, California firm of Gilfix & La Poll Associates) and Bernard A. Krooks (partner in New York firm of Littman Krooks LLP) have recent published their article entitled Asset Preservation and Long-term Care: Assault in the Name of Deficit Reduction, Prob. & Prop., Nov./Dec. 2006, at 34.  The authors explain how the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 makes “it tougher for middle- and lower-income elders who face the devastating cost of long-term care to access government-financed health care.” 

Here is the conclusion to their article:

To a very large extent, passage of the DRA was an achievement by deeply partisan politicians and the long-term care insurance industry.  Supports of the DRA and others who attack attorneys who advocate for the rights of American’s elders have successfully distracted Congress from the real issue and the real culprit: the horrific and economically unmanageable cost of long-term health care.

Advocates of elders must go beyond the DRA, work with its terms, and proactively craft solutions that meet the clients’ needs.  Planning must itself become long-term.  It must focus on the many areas of asset protection planning that were unchanged by the DRA as it responds to a new, post DRA reality.