[patient_zero]

Hospital costs are high... because of medicaid? You sure you don't want to trot out the old chestnut that they are also high because we're subsidizing the rest of the world's low medical costs? Pull the other one.

Also the last sentence you wrote doesn't make sense. Please justify your use of "socialist aspect of downsizing assets to qualify".

[Brockenstein]

I think he's trying to dog socialism by attaching it to the wealth requirements for qualifying for medicare/medicaid. IE you can't have hundreds of thousands of dollars in asestes and property and qualify. I don't perceive this as a problem with socialism, so much as preventing people that could pay for care trying to leech off government programs because they don't wanna and are butt hurt because poor people don't just die in a gutter.

[creaghpatr]

What is happening in this scenario is a re-distribution of wealth. The costs of subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid, programs which would collapse without the subsidy of private insurance pricing, are financed by the rich- including this nobel winner who will redistribute his asset(s) to those in need (Medicaid beneficiaries). That is the 'socialist aspect'.

If you'd like to learn more about how hospitals that serve Medicare/Medicaid patients need additional taxpayer funding to remain financially solvent, you can look at the statistics around Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH).

https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/finance/dsh/index.html