Cost Benefit Study of the New Covent Garden Market

The Hon. Editor has received the following letter commenting on Professor Kirk's and Mr. Sloyan's article on the New Covent Garden Market (Vol. 56 Spring 1978). The author is lecturer in applied economics in the Department of Social and Economic Research, University of Glasgow. Mr. Heald's letter is followed by a reply by Professor Kirk on behalf of Mr. Sloyan and himself.     

Reducing Medicaid expenditures through family responsibility: critique of a recent proposal.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare recently proposed a "Family Responsibility Plan" which would impose a financial obligation upon adult children in the state for the nursing-home care of their parents who receive Medicaid. By examining the Massachusetts plan, this Note seeks to evaluate the viability of a concept of family responsibility, under which adult children contribute to the state Medicaid expenses of their medically indigent parents in nursing homes, as a means of combating the increase in state Medicaid expenditures. The Note examines the legal and policy issues raised by the Massachusetts welfare department's plan in particular, and by the concept of family responsibility in general. The author concludes that alternative methods of cost containment, such as positive financial incentives, would be more appropriate mechanisms for reducing state Medicaid expenditures than family--that is, adult child--responsibility plans.