Maryland has repealed its little-used filial responsibility law. Maryland's filial responsibility law provided that adult children are obligated to financially support an indigent parent with basic needs such as food, care, shelter, and clothing. The law was not used much in nursing home cases because Maryland law also prohibits a nursing home from holding adult children responsible for a parent's nursing home bill unless the child consents in writing to be financially responsible. However, the law could have been used when a parent under age 65 was under the care of a psychiatric hospital, or for parents receiving nursing home care paid for by Medicaid in resource recovery after the parent's death.
Although, like many states, Maryland never used its filial responsibility law to seek repayment of Medicaid benefits, other states have followed the recommendation of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) policy analysts in expanding Medicaid resource recovery efforts to include application of the law. These states include Pennsylvania, Connecticut and South Dakota.
The repeal saw bipartisan support. The arguments for repealing the law included that filial responsibility laws were a holdover from Elizabethan times, and that a parent’s failure to exercise sound financial planning should not burden the parent’s adult children. Of course, one only needs to witness the chaos created by filial responsibility laws in Pennsylvania to justify repeal.
Idaho repealed its filial responsibility law in 2011. Only Maryland and Idaho have repealed filial responsibility laws in the modern age, rejecting the havoc that such laws often play play in creating family disputes and discord, and in potentially negating responsible long term care financial and estate planning. A host of other states continue to keep and enforce filial responsibility as state law.
To read the full repeal, go here.
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