I had heard about this before but I didnt realize how this attack on people's assets when they die is so aggressive-
- this is a huge problem - and it needs to be addressed now.
Because jobs are going away for good so people need to be able to pass on whatever assets they have to their children. This provision seems designed to drive poor and middle income Americans out of the US.
How can Americans support a system that deliberately intimidates poor people from going to the doctor by means of this terrifying medicaid asset recovery program.
Imagine you are a single parent, have children and you get sick, but cannot afford US healthcare. This program seems designed to prevent people from going to the doctor.
"Second is that enrollment in Medicaid is now mandatory. If you or your family make less that 138% of the Federal poverty level, which in the 48 states and Washington DC would be $16,105 for an individual and $32,913 for a family of four in 2014 you are enrolled unless you fit in a short list of categories, such as being in jail, being in a state that opted out of Medicaid expansion, or being a member of an Indian tribe. You cannot opt out of Medicaid because you object to the estate recovery. You have to pay the penalty if you want out. And there are many routes by which you can become enrolled: by applying on an exchange and having it determine your income is too low to qualify for private insurance; by being in the SNAP (food stamps) database; by having an Obamacare plan but having a fall in income that puts you in the Medicaid category."
In June 2013 a letter was sent to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services by a well-informed citizen pointing out that the Medicaid Manual prepared by CMS to provide guidance for states contains procedural rules intended to ensure that individuals are informed about estate recovery before they complete the application process.
There are variations in the ways in which states implement estate recovery, depending upon their Medicaid program and state laws. However, Federal law requires all states to incorporate the following protections for Medicaid recipients into the design of their estate recovery program:
— The State should notify Medicaid recipients about the estate recovery program during their initial application for Medicaid eligibility and annual re-determination process.
— The State must notify affected survivors about the initiation of estate recovery and give them an opportunity to claim an exemption based on hardship.
— The State must establish procedures and criteria to waive recovery if it would cause undue hardship.
The letter went on to say that the final CMS Health Insurance Marketplace application (healthcare.gov) notifies applicants about Medicaid’s right to pursue and recover any money from other health insurance, legal settlements or other third parties but does not disclose estate recovery. Since estate recovery is one of the terms of the Medicaid contract, it is deceptive to omit disclosure of this practice. CMS was asked to provide the reasons for this omission.
CMS responded evasively to the concerned citizen’s question. CMS claimed that the Health Insurance Marketplace application at healthcare.gov does not disclose Medicaid’s right to claim against the estate, because CMS wanted to provide flexibility to state Medicaid agencies as to how each one notifies applicants about estate recovery. Some states have developed pamphlets to address common estate recovery questions or devote a portion of a general Medicaid pamphlet to the subject. Some states also post their state plans, perhaps with additional explanatory text, on their web sites.
This article examines efforts to create binding international rules regulating public procurement and considers, in particular, the failure to reach a WTO agreement on transparency in government procurement. The particular focus of the discussion is the approach taken by Malaysia to these international procurement rules and to the negotiation of an agreement on transparency. Rules governing public procurement directly implicate fundamental arrangements of authority amongst and between different parts of government, its citizens and non-citizens. At the same time, the rules touch upon areas that are particularly sensitive for some developing countries. Many governments use preferences in public procurement to accomplish important redistributive and developmental goals. Malaysia has long used significant preferences in public procurement to further sensitive developmental policies targeted at improving the economic strength of native Malays. Malaysia also has political and legal arrangements substantially at odds with fundamental elements of proposed global public procurement rules. Malaysia has, therefore, been forceful in resisting being bound by international public procurement rules, and has played an important role in defeating the proposed agreement on transparency. We suggest that our case study has implications beyond procurement. The development of international public procurement rules appears to be guided by many of the same values that guide the broader effort to create a global administrative law. This case study, therefore, has implications for the broader exploration of these efforts to develop a global administrative law, in particular the relationship between such efforts and the interests of developing countries.
Must see.. Lots of interesting information here. I wish US companies were more like this!
About Jack Ma:Jack Ma or Ma Yun (Chinese: 马云; born September 10, 1964) is a Chinese business magnate and philanthropist. Jack Ma is the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of highly successful Internet-based businesses. Jack Ma is the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes. As of November 2014, Jack Ma is the richest man in China (HK not included) and 18th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $22.5 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
_Jack Mawas born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Jack Ma's parents were traditional musician-storytellers. At an early age, Jack Ma developed a desire to learn English so Jack Ma rode his bike each morning in order to go to a nearby hotel and converse with foreigners. Jack Ma would guide them around the city for free in order to practice and improve his English.Jack Ma did this for nine years. Jack Ma became pen pals with one of these foreigners and she was the one who gave him the name "Jack", because Jack Ma's real Chinese name was too difficult to pronounce.
Later in Jack Ma's youth, and although Jack Ma failed the university entrance exam three times,Jack Ma attended Hangzhou Teacher's Institute (currently known as Hangzhou Normal University) and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in English. While at school, Jack Ma was elected student chairman.Jack Ma became a lecturer in English and International Trade at the Hangzhou Dianzi University and went on to further education at Beijing-based Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), founded in 2002 by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, graduating in 2006.[9]
At first Jack Ma started building websites for Chinese companies with the help of friends in the US. Jack Ma has said that "the day we got connected to the Web, I invited friends and TV people over to my house," and on a very slow dial-up connection, "we waited three and a half hours and got half a page.... We drank, watched TV and played cards, waiting. But I was so proud. I proved (to my house guests that) the Internet existed."
At a conference in 2010,Jack Ma revealed that Jack Ma has never actually written a line of code nor made one sale to a customer. Jack Ma encountered a computer for the first time at the age of thirty-three.
In 1994, Jack Ma heard about the Internet. In early 1995, Jack Ma went to the United States and with Jack Ma's friends' help Jack Ma got introduced to the Internet. During Jack Ma's first encounter Jack Ma searched the word "beer". Although Jack Ma found information related to beer from many countries, Jack Ma was surprised to find none from China. Further, Jack Ma tried to search for general information about China and again was surprised to find none. So Jack Ma and his friend created an "ugly" (according to Ma)[citation needed] website related to China. Within five hours of creating the website Jack Ma had received emails from some Chinese wishing to know about Jack Ma. This is when Jack Ma realized that the Internet had something great to offer. In April 1995, Jack Ma, Jack Ma's wife and a friend collected twenty thousand dollars and started an Internet company. Their company was dedicated to creating websites for companies. Jack Ma named their company "China Yellow Pages." Within three years, his company had made 5,000,000 Chinese Yuan which was equivalent to U$800,000.
From 1998 to 1999, Jack Ma headed an information technology company established by the China International Electronic Commerce Center, a department of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. In 1999, Jack Ma decided to quit and went back to Hangzhou with Jack Ma's team in order to found Alibaba in Jack Ma's apartment with a group of 17 friends.Jack Ma started a new round of venture development with 500,000 Yuan. Alibaba is a China-based business-to-business marketplace site which currently serves more than 79 million members from more than 240 countries and territories.
In October 1999 and January 2000, Alibaba twice won a total of a $25 million international venture capital investment. The program was expected to improve the domestic e-commerce market and perfect an e-commerce platform for Chinese enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to address WTO challenges. Jack Ma wanted to improve the global e-commerce system and from 2003 Jack Ma founded Taobao Marketplace, Alipay, Ali Mama and Lynx. After the rapid rise of Taobao, eBay offered to purchase the company but Jack Ma rejected their offer, instead garnering support from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang with a $1 billion investment.
"Since the story from New York Daily News writer Shaun King came out on Thursday, there has been a big hullabaloo about what a difference adding the caucus results into the popular vote would make. Estimates have been made by the Washington Post and others, and they consistently show that it is indeed true that Clinton's 3 million number is a misrepresentation of the true will of the people.
If Clinton is so sure that she will be the nominee, why then, does she continue to lie to the people? Ring of Fire's Sydney Robinson discusses this."
