America's Best Kept Secret: An Adult Child's Duty to Support Aged Parents

Ann H. Britton, Widener Law

Abstract

Many states have statutes that, like child support statutes, require adult children to support their indigent parents. The statutes have been mostly ignored ever since Medicaid stopped requiring applicants to exhaust this resource (suing their adult children for support). However, some of the statutes still provide ways for adult children who are, in fact, supporting needy parents to obtain contribution from their siblings. As long as the statutes remain, Medicaid could, of course, reverse its policy of not requiring their enforcement.