Public Benefits

The Obama administration may be on the brink of scuttling a new national long-term care insurance program that was part of the health reform law.

More states are choosing to expand Medicaid services for people with low-incomes and the Department of Health and Human Services has just released regulations to ensure that people with disabilities will receive the coverage they need from private health insurers.

President Obama has named Henry Claypool, Executive Vice-President of the American Association of People with Disabilities, as a member of the national Commission on Long-Term Care, giving disability advocates a voice on the panel that will recommend changes to the...

If you are taking on the responsibility of serving as the trustee of a special needs trust you will need a "go-to" reference guide that you can refer to. For most trustees, the 2020 edition of Managing a Special Needs Trust:...

Workers who must pay for the care of a dependent relative, including a child with special needs, so that they can continue to work can get a significant tax benefit under a little-known provision of the Internal Revenue Code, the...

After a successful effort by the 14-year-old brother of a girl with intellectual disabilities to remove the word "retarded" from Maryland law, US Senator Barbara Mikulski has proposed a bill that would do the same thing in all federal programs.

Several little-noticed provisions of the recently-enacted law that extended the Bush-era tax cuts fundamentally alter how the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid programs treat tax refunds and other tax credits, making it easier for people with special needs to...

Each public benefits program has restrictions that the special needs trust must comply with in order not to jeopardize the beneficiary's continued eligibility for public benefits. Both Medicaid and SSI are quite restrictive, making it difficult for a beneficiary to...

The final budget deal Congress passed to avert the fiscal cliff repeals a long-term care insurance program that would have helped keep the elderly and disabled out of nursing homes and off the Medicaid rolls.