Fw: States Cut Services For Elderly, Disabled, and Our Response?

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" States Cut Services For Elderly, Disabled, " and Our Response?

>

> " States Cut Services For Elderly, Disabled, " and Our Response?

> Information Bulletin #267 (11/08)

>

>

> The Wall Street Journal's article " States Cut Services For Elderly,

> Disabled. As Budget Shortfalls Force Reductions in Home Care, Low-Income

> People May Face Nursing Homes, Advocates Say " (11/20/08 at D1) should be

> read by advocates for people with disabilities and for the elderly.

>

>

> Advocates should be aware that if your state reduces its Medicaid

> home-care services, whether personal attendant care hours and eligibility,

> home health, number of prescriptions, other services, there may be ADA

> legal challenges available to stop these reductions.

>

>

> Be on the look out in your state for:

>

>

> 1. Medicaid reductions that discriminate based on severity of disability

> so that reduced benefits will provide adequate services for persons with

> less severe impairments but not be adequate for persons with more severe

> disabilities.

>

>

> 2. Community-based Medicaid reductions without any significant reductions

> in the institutional expenditures. Think about how much Medicaid funds

> could be " saved " in your state by reducing the nursing home Medicaid per

> diem reimbursements by $3.00 a day. With 53.3% of the 1,153,601 nursing

> home residents paid by Medicaid, a $3.00 per day reduction could go a long

> way to resolving other budgetary reductions.

>

>

> 3. Medicaid reductions that force people, in order to survive, to have to

> go into an institution to receive the same services that they had been

> receiving in the community. People with disabilities of any age should

> not have to go into a nursing home in order to receive services!

>

>

> 4. Medicaid reductions that are not individually determined and therefore

> do not provide for flexibly applying " reasonable accommodations " to assess

> what services may be necessary to stay out of an institution.

>

>

> 5. Medicaid waiver reductions that are based on " individual " cost

> neutrality rather than " aggregate " cost neutrality.

>

>

> 6. Reductions and payments for services that do not recognize and take

> different levels of " need " into account, but instead lump all disabled

> persons into one need-category.

>

>

> I have no doubt that, if your state officials think the disability and

> elderly advocates will take reductions in community-based services lying

> down, they will use the current economic climate as an excuse.

>

>

> Power concedes nothing without a struggle.

>

>

> Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues

>

>

> Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at

> http://www.stevegoldada.com

> with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.

>

>

> To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@...

> or call .

>

> --

> ----------------------------------------------------------------

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>

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>

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