Does "Pladson" Factorability of Annuity Payments Blow Up Medicaid Eligibility?

Pladson v Traill County Social Services and DHS of State of North Dakota

"While the annuity, by its terms, cannot be assigned, there is nothing in the law to prevent Ms. Pladson from contracting to sell the payments she receives from her annuity". A decision by the Supreme Court of North Dakota from which quote was derived exposes an issue that could have major implications on factoring companies and on the documentation involved in settlements where there is an issue of Medicaid eligibility.

The case is captioned

In the Matter of the Estate of Deloris Pladson, Petitioner and Appellee
v.
Traill County Social Services and the Department of Human Services for the State of North Dakota, Respondents and Appellants No. 20050154

Appeal from the District Court of Traill County, East Central Judicial District, the Honorable John Charles Irby, Judge.

In this case Pladson had a deferred annuity with no cash out provision yet was denied benefits because the annuity benefits could be sold to a factoring company such as JG Wentworth, New England Brokerage or Peachtree (which advertise "Annuity Purchase Program" all over the Internet)

Does it take much of a stretch to see how this could be applied to structured settlement annuities? And even though this is a North Dakota case, does it take much of a stretch to see this being raised elsewhere?

A panel of experts assembled this morning at the Annual Meeting of the National Structured Settlement Trade Association at the Westin Rio Mar in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico offered a beef up of so-called "anti-assignment provision" language in the settlement documents as a smart potential strategy.