The Social Security Administration has released a new POMS instruction dealing with early termination provisions in (d)(4)(A) and (d)(4)(C) trusts. Under the new instruction, if a trust contains a provision that allows for early termination before the death of the primary beneficiary, it must contain a payback provision that would apply upon such early termination; otherwise, the entire trust will be considered a countable resource for SSI purposes.
A federal district court in North Carolina holds that the state's Medicaid reimbursement statutes comply with
Ahlborn and therefore a Medicaid recipient's claim that the state is not entitled to recover its Medicaid lien lacks merit.
Armstrong v. Cansler (U.S. Dist. Ct., W.D.N.C., No. 5:07-CV-37-RLV, June 28, 2010).