To the editor:
I write regarding “An open letter to Vice President Harris and Massachusetts Governor Healey” by Patrick White and the subsequent criticism proffered in a comment by Mr. Ken Werner.
Mr. White proposes a repeal of the estate-recovery provisions of Medicaid in which your home is taken by the Commonwealth if you are old, cannot pay your medical expenses, and must rely on Medicaid.
Mr. Werner objects, stating, “Someone has to pay for that cost. If it’s not the person who received it, it will be all of us taxpayers. To me, it’s ridiculous and unfair to expect me to pay for someone else’s inheritance.”
Mr. Werner’s criticism, on one level, makes sense. Why should anyone receive medical care and not pay for it if they have resources to do it?
Closer inspection reveals that Mr. Werner seems to be thinking about the very rich, while Patrick White is trying to correct an inequity imposed on the middle class. Medicaid is funded by state and federal taxes. Middle-class people work hard their whole lives, all the while paying taxes that fund Medicaid they don’t use. When they retire, they live on fixed incomes. When illness and old age combine to exceed that fixed income, or force early retriement, many find themselves in a desperate situation. By taking away the hard-earned, after-tax savings they invested in their homes, the Commonwealth only ensures that their children will have a harder life and will be one step closer to needing Medicaid themselves. This is penny wise and pound foolish.
According to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, 90 percent of the nation’s wealth has been accumulated by less than 10 percent of the population. What is left to the rest of us is tantamount to crumbs from the table. The very rich have an unfair advantage that increases with each generation because our tax and social welfare systems favor the very rich. The middle class already pays more than its share for social welfare systems. All that really needs to be done is to ensure that such a plan benefits the middle class and that the very rich are excluded from the repeal.
We need to empower the middle class with techniques like Patrick White’s, get control of the unfair leverage of the ultra-rich, and stop fighting among ourselves for the crumbs that fall from the table.
Patrick White is trying to do just that.
Charles Kenny
Stockbridge
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