The federal government allows states to recoup Medicaid costs after the deaths of patients who use the program. Estate recovery allows homes to be seized and sold to pay off expended Medicaid dollars, a move advocates decry as penalizing low-income families, and making Medicaid into a loan program.

Some states take the federal rules a step further. “MassHealth has some of the strongest and most draconian state recovery rules in the country,” Somerville Rep. Christine Barber said on a new “Health or Consequences” episode of The Codcast with John McDonough of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and Dr. Paul Hattis, who recently retired from Tufts University School of Medicine.

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