Please protect yourselves. Â Please contact the members of the South Dakota Senate Judiciary Committee (listed below) Monday.
Did you know South Dakota is preparing to allow other people to take away your assets or deplete your assets without you being able to do anything about it? On Tuesday February 27, 2018 the SD Senate Judiciary Committee will be considering a poorly written bill allowing other people to determine your personal and financial fate. They will be considering HB 1204, the Uniform Power of Attorney Act. This bill while offering a few good ideas, allows someone to strip you of your rights at the point you are most vulnerable, when you are sick or aged. It will not allow you to fight a forced guardianship proceeding. It will allow trumped allegations of your mental or physical conditions to be ram rodded through a court proceeding where you are not even allowed representation.
How do I know this? Read the text of the email I just sent to the committee members today below:
I have witnessed and experienced the Power of Attorney (POA) process at its worst. As passed by the House, HB 1204 makes an easier method for greed and fraud to take over your life when you need protections most. There are no safeguards in HB 1204 protecting you, the person, before you can be locked away from everyone and everything you care about. HB 1204 only cares about the money assets and throws you, the financially depleted person as a carcass on to the state’s Medicaid program.
I have been an unpaid guardian, conservator and power of attorney in multiple states for several people for over 30 years. People entrusted me to be their eyes, ears and decision maker when they were most vulnerable. I have had to sit for hours over the course of years, in some cases, to know their deepest thoughts and fears as they aged. I have also been entrusted to complete their desires when the inevitable time comes, to help them reach death with dignity. These are not easy decisions to make for a healthy person and impossible to make when society does not want to help them in the way they wanted. In each situation I have been part of, I had to learn how each wanted my help.Â
HB 1204 easily takes this most precious, personal and scary time away from the person they trusted and allows complete strangers to benefit without recourse. Frauds and deceptions can happen to the protected person without the ability of legal, family or current POA to help. A person can be locked up in a facility, controlled by strangers who have no interest other the next check they can receive until the assets are stripped.
Do you know how I know this? I have a family member currently locked up in a house, in a town she never wanted to live, with people she doesn’t liked, not being allowed to talk to her children without supervision and we family members have her cry out during phone calls for help to stop abuse without anyone being able to do so. This law as written, will legalize the entire process just described.
First, I believe in the model legislation HB 1204 was supposed to be based on, but this version before you only protects a commercial guardianship business at the expense of the person who may or may not have signed a POA. This legislation, as offered, will only protect the abusers of the elderly and those who have asked for assistance.Â
When I recently asked the authors to consider modifications to HB 1204, the answer was “Well, you can sue if there is a problem.†HB 1204 does not have legal safeguards in place for a person to fight. In many states where this legislation has been introduced, this type of legislation has enhanced the professional guardianship industry to strip people of their rights, property and families.
If you have a chance to read the article link I am enclosing, you may see the mess Arizona and other states are considering for the UPOA process.
How the Elderly Lose Their Rights https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights
Please help us fix the safeguards before making the system worse by passing this Uniform Power of Attorney bill, HB 1204. I know you are very busy with the work you do for South Dakota, but please vote no on HB 1204.
All we ask is for the public to be able to help craft this law to protect not only our loved ones but ourselves as we age. We average non legal or financial citizens should have been asked to be part of this process before we are abused like so many we can no longer see or talk to.
Brock.Greenfield@sdlegislature.gov
Arthur.Rusch@sdlegislature.gov
Craig.Kennedy@sdlegislature.gov
Stace.Nelson@sdlegislature.gov
Jenna.Netherton@sdlegislature.gov
Lance.Russell@sdlegislature.gov
Isaac.Latterell@sdlegislature.gov