ACA palliative care provisions open new door for probate, property rights abuse

Palliative care is a term with which increased numbers of Americans have become familiar since 2009 with the debate and passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Stated simply, it’s medical care administered as a replacement to medical treatment. It’s also key to the “death panels” Obamacare opponents predict.

Following the June 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the new healthcare law, the Center to Advance Palliative Care issued this statement:

The Center to Advance Palliative Care is pleased that the Affordable Care Act, with its aims to expand access to quality healthcare for all Americans, will continue to positively affect healthcare delivery in the United States. With increased access to care, and the development of enhanced quality measures, more seriously ill patients and families will receive the high quality, effective care they need to reduce suffering and live longer, healthier lives. This benefit is of the utmost importance to CAPC and the field of palliative care, as the patients we treat are the sickest, most vulnerable people in our nation’s healthcare system.

A 2009 article, Obamacare: Stimulus for estate abuse?, described how disgruntled family members, wannabe heirs or unscrupulous members of the legal industry will find Obamacare helpful with Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) actions in which probate venues or instruments like wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney are used to divert assets from intended heirs or beneficiaries. Palliative care was also discussed:

Palliative care, a common end-of-life care component, is defined as any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing disease symptom severity rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. While used with aggressive treatment, it is also a common alternative for patients who decline prolonged, expensive efforts. Performed under the guise of government-run health care, it’s likely to become a mandated, state-sponsored doping of sick Americans deemed unsuitable for proactive medical treatment.

Elder financial abuse is frequently termed the crime of the 21st century. Estate looting and other probate abuse often fall into this category. Estate disputes frequently include allegations of undue influence with the role of medication being a common point of contention. If palliative care becomes a major tool in the government’s arsenal of health care cost-cutting measures, predators will seize this opportunity.

These concerns are now bolstered as CNS News reports how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is “soliciting applications for federal grants worth up to $ 275,000 to research ways to provide elderly patients with ‘palliative care’ – even in hospital emergency rooms and intensive care units.”

The article explains:

Palliative care is commonly understood to mean medical treatment that focuses on relieving symptoms, including pain, instead of trying to treat or cure the underlying disease.

But researchers will not be studying the use of palliative care to relieve the suffering of dying patients. “Hospice and end-of-life settings are not included within the scope” of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the grant notices specifically state.

Instead, they will be looking at new ways to provide elderly patients with palliative care long before they are at death’s door.

The palliative care will be provided in “a variety of settings, including ambulatory care, hospitals (and specific sites within hospitals including specialty wards, intensive care units and emergency departments), assisted living facilities, and short- and long-term care facilities.”

The federal money will be used to “advance [the] science of geriatric palliative care… in settings and at time points earlier in geriatric patients’ diseases or disability trajectories,” according to the grant notices (PA-13-354, 355 & 356).

One of the grants is categorized under NIH’s R21 Exploratory/Developmental grants, defined on the agency’s website as “novel studies that break new ground or extend previous discoveries toward new directions or applications.”

“Isolate, medicate, steal the estate” is a phrase commonly associated with IRA acts. The medicate phase offers great opportunity for the use of undue influence that can lead to late-in-life and uncharacteristic estate plan changes. Abandoning proactive medical treatments to artificially incapacitate our seniors in the name of “palliative care” will aid unscrupulous individuals in estate hijacking pursuits. Similar concerns can be raised for the disabled or younger people with terminal illness or life-threatening injuries – especially individuals attached to a significant estate as legal settlements can provide.

The Obama administration and other congressional leaders claim this new system will be better for all Americans. The federal government wants us to trust it with a plan forcing a majority of Americans to forfeit a flawed, but functioning health care system in pursuit of a plan that already is driving up insurance costs, failing to attract the young, healthy people on who its premium structure is based and prompting a move of workers to the plan as employers drop increasingly-expensive coverage.

Estate abuse and probate corruption already threaten the property rights of Americans and their heirs’ or beneficiaries’ inheritance rights. Provisions of Obamacare  – specifically doping rather than treating certain population segments – will add to the problem. People get upset when such acts impact their families, but are usually clueless and largely uncaring to these threats’ widespread nature as well as the predictability of more abusive actions that Obamacare with its expansion of palliative care measures can’t help but bring.

Routine treatment of estate thefts as civil rather than criminal matters has already provided growth opportunities for the legal industry in addition to generating incentives for others desiring to divert assets from intended heirs and beneficiaries. Increased numbers of heavily-medicated, especially elderly, Americans can only fuel this expansion of activity.

Lou Ann Anderson

Lou Ann Anderson is an information activist and the editor of Watchdog Wire – Texas. As a Policy Analyst with Americans for Prosperity – Texas, she writes and speaks about a variety of public policy topics. Lou Ann is the Creator and Online Producer at EstateofDenial.com, a web site that addresses the growing issue of probate abuse in which wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney are used to loot assets from intended beneficiaries or heirs. Contact Lou Ann at Texas@WatchdogWire.com with story ideas and for ways to get involved with citizen journalism in Texas.

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ACA palliative care provisions open new door for probate, property rights abuse

Probate: More Costly than Just Shelling Out Money

You know you are not immortal. You also have enough sense to know you can\’t bring your property to heaven. Hence, you figure out how to apportion your estate to the people you love. Now, you need to have knowledge of estate planning; otherwise, your estate may be subject to probate when your time comes.

What is probate? It is a court procedure wherein the estate of a person who died are parceled out, first, to the creditors, then the remaining to the beneficiaries of the estate. In the process, a court makes an inventory of the estate of the deceased, then pays off creditors and other debts. Then, the remainder is distributed to the deceased\’s designated inheritors.

If you think probate is costly, you are certainly correct. There are fees to be paid. To name a few, there are court fees, attorneys\’ fees and the fee for the executor. The latter is the person designated by a tribunal to supervise the liquidation of the estate. There is also the matter of the probate fee, whose rate also varies in proportion to the size of the estate. The rate may be substantial — as much as 10% of the assets. And who pays for all these? In effect, the heirs. After all, the fees will be taken from the estate. So, if the beneficiaries anticipate a certain windfall, they should expect something much, much less.

The costs in probate procedures go beyond dollars and cents. Time is gold and probate takes so much time. If you know that probates are managed by the courts, then you realize how laggard the pacing of probate is. If your heirs are lucky, the process can be done in six months. The usual situation is one to three years. The process takes that long especially if your estate has some legal complications. Another reason for delay is the number of court cases in the probate process. Would you like your heirs to wait for three years before they can get their inheritance?

Lastly, one must factor in the loss of privacy. As the process is managed by legal entities, then all information and records become open for public scrutiny. The debts and other obligations of the deceased become public knowledge. So too is the parceling out of the estate to the named heirs. Thus, any citizen who wants to look up the records may discover that a lucky inheritor went home with Uncle Bob\’s prized heirloom, the Ferrari sports car and choice pieces of land. This is all in the name of transparency. With this openness, the heirs may be easy prey to people with criminal intent.

It\’s bad enough that probate costs money. The loss of time and privacy is intangible and immeasurable.

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Probate: More Costly than Just Shelling Out Money

The Value Of Pre-Planning Your Estate

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If anyone has ever been immortal they have kept it a well guarded secret, because that just isn\’t how the life cycle works. Part of this cycle includes taxes and death and it is inevitable. Having established the fact that you will die, it only makes sense to start preparing now, for unforeseen events and tragedies that can leave everyone devastated should you have an untimely death. Having adequate protection for those you love is protecting their welfare from the grave through an extensive estate plan. Without estate planning, your survivors could see strangers take what was meant for them and this is would be an especially sad day for your family and loved ones. Estate planning is that important, so stop waiting any more precious time. Here are some things to consider.

Estate planning is simply a plan of how you want all your assets distributed by have a list of beneficiaries in the event of your death. You can be very specific regarding items, every single asset and who you wish to benefit from them. A really great thing about an estate is that you can protect those you love from enduring excessive taxation. You will also be able to settle all outstanding debts without your debts becoming a burden to others you care about.

Estate planning is a great way to take advantage of maximizing your assets. This can include all financial as well as non-financial matters depending on who it concerns. Care of specific dependents is a great example. Also, you can make a contribution to keep your culture, fund a community project or help that special charity that is close to your heart.

If one dies without leaving a will, their assets are usually distributed in accordance with a standard statutory criterion. More often than not, this formula tends to deviate from the wishes of the deceased. It also only covers their personally owned assets; other considerations such as trusts, business properties and interests as well as retirement assets may be left out.

When one dies intestate (without leaving a will), the bereaved spouse usually finds him/herself playing an unfamiliar administrative role. This also applies to financial-savvy people; the loss of a loved one can cloud the judgment of the administrator. This puts them at risk of making the wrong decisions, including those offering time-critical tax saving opportunities.

An estate plan reduces the risk of such occurrences by addressing all major financial issues. The most critical matter includes means by which survivors will access the cash. Other issues include life insurance and social security beneficiaries.

With a will of your last wishes you can also reduce the amount of paperwork that generally leads to very unhealthy stress levels that really are unnecessary. Many administrators suddenly become overwhelmed with all the tasks that must be done quickly without any time to do the estate justice as well as compensate all the beneficiaries according to your wishes. If there are infants or disabled household members involved, not having a clearly outlined will could be disastrous for them.

It also helps one keep their will updated to be in accordance with policy changes. When changes in relationships, economic circumstances and tax laws occur, the documents need to be amended. The beneficiaries designated by life insurance policies and retirement plans could also lose their inheritance if the documents conflict with existing laws. Planning makes it easy to make changes to all documents when need arises.

Planning also makes it possible for one to take advantage of exemptions when it comes to estate taxes. Most states have exemptions on assets transferred to beneficiaries who are not spouses of the deceased. Some of the most common strategies used to avoid estate taxes are bypass trusts and lifetime gifts. If you still have queries as to why is estate planning worthwhile, you may consult an attorney specializing in succession for exhaustive answers.

Smart estate planning is crucial to protect your assets. A quality estate planning attorney will make planning for the future simple.

The Value Of Pre-Planning Your Estate