PAYING FOR PARENTS

"Honor they father and mother." So says the Lord in the Old Testament. That biblical injunction could gain new meaning for families with an elderly parent in need of nursing home care.

Under a little-noticed provision of the Medicare reform proposal under consideration in Congress, states would have the option of requiring grown children to help pay their parents' nursing home bills. It is called the "family responsibility" provision. It is potentially one of the most emotionally charged issues surrounding the entire debate of how to gain control on runaway Medicare costs that threaten to bankrupt the system within the next six years.

Democrats, seeing a potentially powerful issue with which to drive a wedge between Republicans and middle-class voters, have pounced. Thus Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, says, "If you go into a nursing home, your family could go bankrupt. If you go into a nursing home, your children's assets could be seized to pay for it."

Republicans are downplaying the measure's impact. "There isn't a state in the union that would incur the political consequence of trying to seek contributions from the children of people in nursing homes," said the House Commerce Committee's chairman, Tom Bliley, R-Va. "Especially when they consider the small amount of money that could ever be recouped." However, Texas GOP Gov. George Bush has expressed support for families' paying at least a token amount for indigent parents' care.

The measure deserves to be debated free of hysteria and fear-mongering. If the Republican revolution is about devolving power from the federal government to the states, then giving states the power to choose to require such a contribution is certainly within that orbit. Let that debate proceed.