The NC State House restores part of Senator Berger's cut. In response, Senator Berger tries to cut the program...again! Read the release below:
For Immediate Release:
June 22, 2009
3101 Industrial Drive
Suite 204
Raleigh, North Carolina 27609
Phone: 919.848.3450
Toll Free (NC): 800.999.2357
E.mail: timrogers@homeandhospicecare.org
tracycolvard@homeandhospicecare.org
Senator Doug Berger: Close Down Home Health Care
Last Thursday night in the House-Senate Conference, Senator Doug Berger proposed to cut home care for Medicaid patients $77 million – a $55 million deeper cut than the budget the House passed. When the federal matching funds which would be lost are added to Senator Berger’s cut, he proposed slashing the home care program by $308 million or 85% – all but eliminating it.
At a minimum, Senator Berger’s ‘Health Care Plan’ puts the vast majority of the 36,000 patients currently receiving the service, who under state law each have to suffer from two disabilities to be in the program, at risk to lose their care.
“Let’s be clear,” said Tim Rogers, Director of the Association for Home & Hospice Care, “What Senator Berger tried to do would end the care – primarily – of elderly patients who suffer from two of six disabilities: Difficulties eating, bathing, walking, toileting, dressing or have incontinence.
“That is a measure of the pain in human terms.
“In addition, the only alternative left for these patients, once they can no longer receive care in their homes, would be to go into a Rest Home or Nursing Home. Those will be the only places they can go to get the care they need.
“Let’s measure the financial costs.
“Home care – on average – costs $9,000 per year per patient. In home care, the patient pays for his – or her – own food and lives at home.
“In Rest and Nursing Homes, costs range between $21,000 - $48,000 per year – the government pays for each patient’s lodging, food, medications and other needs 24/7 and, naturally, it costs more.
“Cutting an inexpensive program and driving people into an expensive one makes no sense. Eliminating home care won’t save the taxpayers a penny – it will cost them millions to care for the same patients.
“If all the patients who would lose their care due to Senator Berger’s plan end up in institutional care – it would cost taxpayers over half a billion dollars.
“Under Senator Berger’s plan no one wins except Rest and Nursing Home operators – and they can’t cope with the possibility of 36,000 potential new patients.
“We have done our best to reason with Senator Berger. We have told him these facts. But it seems the more we talk to him the madder he gets – we feel like we have run head-on into a stone wall. Hopefully, when the Senate and House return Monday, calmer minds will prevail – and stand up for these patients – in both the legislature and the Department of Health and Human Services.”
Sincerly,
Tim Rogers, CEO