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Family Responsibility Initiatives and Justice between Age Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Norman Daniels
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Extract

Only one of the Ten Commandments offers a reward. We should honor our parents, we are told, so that our days may be long. When the federal or state governments appeal to traditional religious and family values, however, we should look to the costs and not the benefits. In Hawaii, House Resolution 54 would seek to reinstate a relative responsibility law that was repealed in 1965; the immediate concern is to correct a $30 million shortfall in Medicaid. In Massachusetts, a pending bill, House Bill 1753, would make each “responsible relative” of a Medicaid recipient residing in a nursing home accountable for up to 25 percent of the amount paid, although the total collected from all responsible relatives must not exceed 100 percent of Medicaid payments. According to the bill, responsible relatives are spouses, natural and adoptive children, or natural or adoptive parents of blind or disabled children under 18.

Type
Article
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , September 1985 , pp. 153 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1985

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