Patrick Hindert posts today on "Structured Settlements and Government Benefits". However one assertion he makes in the post is surprising for the accomplished author and is a little bit cockeyed.
Hindert: "The primary funding vehicles for structured settlements related to Medicaid and Medicare are Special Needs Trusts and Medicare set-aside arrangements"
SS4R: Irrespective of any other Deficit Reduction Act issue, structured settlement annuities are typically funding vehicles that feed periodic payments to a person, or into a receptacle as described below. When structured settlements are used in conjunction with Special Needs Trusts (SNT) and "Medicare Set Aside Trusts" (MSAT) or "Medicare Set Aside Arrangements" (MSAA) , the SNT, MSAT or MSAA is the receptacle to the structured settlement payments from the structured settlement funding vehicle.
Traditionally the use of structured settlements as as a funding vehicle for SNTs enables the beneficiary to benefit from rated ages (medical underwriting) which theoretically enables that less trust corpus to be consumed. This is because a rated age means that the structured settlement quote will be less. There is also an argument that it saves the government money because dollars are stretched farther than they otherwise would be and therefore the tax payer saves. In the MSAT environment the use of structured settlement rated ages serves to reduce the cost of the MSAT by reducing the cost of the ongoing payments of the set aside.
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