OCR Text |
Show C M September 11, 2008 Y Pennies by the Inch runs from September 15 through October 15. Thousands of volunteers will go door-to-door asking neighbors and friends to help children in need. Every penny donated helps needy children at Primary Children’s Medical Center. No funds are used for fund-raising or administrative costs. In fact, doctors donate their services to charity care patients. Primary Children’s is the only hospital in the Intermountain region to be verified as a Trauma 1 Center for children. Children are treated for a vast variety of illness and injury including cancer, diabetes, birth defects, spinal bifida and more. The hospital tarts children from newborn to 21 years. Last year the hospital expended over $8.6 million in charity care which covered nearly 11,000 hospital visits. One child, Joseph Talbert, has been a patient at Primary Children’s Medical Center his entire life. Joseph was born with a serious heart condition and had his first open heart surgery when he was only a few hours old. He had two more surgeries, including a pacemaker, by the time he was 7 years old. When Joseph was 13 years old, doctors at Primary Children’s advised him and his family he needed a heart transplant. After two months of waiting for a heart, the call came. The surgery was 13 hours long. He spent almost a month at the hospital. His recovery took another three months of home isolation because of immune suppressing drugs. The result is a normal 14-year-old boy. He likes to hang out with his friends. He loves having energy to go to school, play sports, and ride his bike. Joseph and his family are grateful to the doctors and nurses at Primary Children’s Medical Center for the excellent treatment he received. Pennies by the Inch is organized by an all-volunteer committee, chaired by Irma Blake. As volunteers knock on you door, they will ask you to “measure your heart” and give generously to help children like Joseph receive the care they need. Contributions can also be sent directly to Primary Children’s Medical Center Foundation, P.O. Box 58249, Salt Lake City, UT 84158. For more information, call the Foundation at 801.662.5965 or visit www. penniesbytheinch.org to donate online. M Y K C M Y K Page 9 K How tall are you? This is the time of year when we can all be giants. C GIANT BEAR HELPS G. C. SHERIFFS OFFICE “ATTACK” MARIJUANA GROW With all of the recent marijuana grow seizures, a very large bear in Garfield County decided to help “attack” the problem as well. Yesterday, Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins, sheriff deputies, and US Forest Service personnel discovered another marijuana grow, this time on the east side of Durfey Creek on Boulder Mountain. What makes this grow different is that it had been initially raided not by law enforcement, but by a giant bear. Deputies found pipes chewed in half, food containers ripped apart and strewn everywhere, cans with bear teeth marks all over them, claw marks and bear prints across the camp, including giant bear claw scratches where people typically carve their name into a tree. “This bear is definitely law-enforcement minded,” laughs Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins. “If I can find this bear I’m going to deputize him.” Sheriff Perkins says it appears that whomever was running this particular marijuana operation decided to abandon his/their efforts after the repeated black bear appearances at their camp became un-”bear”-able. “This particular bear apparently was not going to give up and basically chased these marijuana farmers away. “ said Sheriff Perkins with a smile. “Our county is so tough on drugs that even the wildlife are getting in on the action.” Sheriff Perkins says the grow included 4,000 “starter” sacks of marijuana, (which are small plastic bags with seeds, some chemical plant food and dirt), and 888 young plants. They are all currently being destroyed. Good Samaritan Seeks to Evict 95-Year-Old C M Y K THE ELDERLAW FORUM Professor Michael Myers A reminder to persons entering the autumn of their lives of an ancient legal doctrine: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” This is a case where a generous heart, one naïve daughter and a sister, a not-so-generous non-profit nursing home chain, and Bush Administration “ownership society” regulations have converged to potentially “put on the street” a fragile 95-year-old woman oblivious to her own jeopardy. The generous heart belongs to the 95-year-old. Ten years ago she had assets totaling about $270,000. She was—and continues to be—close to her sister and daughter. In 1999 she placed the name of her sister on her checking account and in 2003 added her daughter, creating joint ownership of the account. Legally, the sister and daughter acquired the capacity to individually exhaust the account. In 2005 the 95-year-old entered a nursing home owned and operated by Lutheran-sponsored Good Samaritan Society, the nation’s largest non-profit chain whose stated mission “is to share God’s love in word and deed by provid- ing shelter and supportive services to older persons.” The 95-year-old encouraged her daughter to use the account for benefit of her and her family. The daughter took her at her word, spending approximately $157,000 for ordinary family expenses over a period of several years. During the past three years, as a coveted “private pay” resident, she paid Good Samaritan $205,000 at the rate of $4,100 per month. By February 2008 her account was depleted, leaving her with a monthly income of $1,100; $900 from Social Security and $200 from a private annuity. She then applied for Medicaid support. Medicaid treated the monies spent by the daughter as “asset transfers” and imposed a penalty period of 26 months, advising that Medicaid will not contribute to her care until October 2010. Two months ago a Good Samaritan lawyer obtained an eviction order from a state administrative law judge. The order was vacated when the family was able to pay another $20,000 to keep Good Samaritan at bay. The family has prepared an amended Medicaid application contending that during Medicaid’s five-year look-back period the daughter and sister also owned the account and were in fact spending their own money, gifted more than five years ago. They should seek an order enjoining the eviction on the grounds of “patient endangerment” and Good Samaritan’s tax-exempt status; but not ignorance of the law. (Pro bono legal information and advice is available through the USD Senior Legal Helpline, 1-800-7471895; mmyers@usd.edu. Opinions solely those of the author and not the University of South Dakota) |