Wouldn't Surprise Me

You've probably seen this since it's an Atrios link, but this is so right up Bush alley that I'll bet at least some in the administration have discussed it:

Now (in this theoretical world) all individuals have retirement income accounts that, while government regulated, are likely to be somewhat similar to 401K and other accounts. If you fall into the need for Medicaid otherwise, its possible that any new law will structure the Private Accounts in a manner that will make them vulnerable to either deny medicaid, or force the recipient to spend down the private account (if they are indeed permitted to do so! - it could be that they would not be permitted to spend the resource down quickly to "preserve" the resource, allowing for a catch-22 denial of medicaid benefits) in order to become eligible for medicaid.

In other words, switching from Social Security to some private account scheme would allow medicaid to have yet another resource to factor into denials, and another resource to force you to spend down your resources (good luck, spouse - you have 90k to live on for the next 30 or 40 years!).

"Solving" the Social Security "problem" could solve the Medicaid problem as well!

I mean, if you don't mind our government's policies going back to the dark ages.

No shit. And in case people don't realize this, Medicare also requires a spend down to qualify for certain benefits.