“Colorado Medicaid officials are pausing a few proposed cuts that would have affected children and adults with severe disabilities who are cared for at home by family members after state lawmakers found the cuts too painful to support,” Jennifer Brown writes over at The Colorado Sun. “The proposals, which came as the state Medicaid program is trying to find tens of millions of dollars in cuts to help balance the budget, were to cap the number of hours family caregivers could bill for what is often round-the-clock medical care, and reduce their pay rate to match what is allowed for group homes. After hours of tearful testimony, the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee refused to grant the requests, pushing them off until next year’s budget instead. The six-member bipartisan committee’s decision to deny and delay came after an 11-member citizen committee appointed by the governor, called the Colorado Medical Services Board, refused last month to even make a motion on a proposal for a rate cut for the state’s most vulnerable people. ‘I understand we need to make cuts,’ Elizabeth Moran, executive director of the Arc of Colorado and sister to a person with disabilities, told lawmakers last week. But cutting services for people who are living at home ‘is not saving money. It is just shifting costs over to more expensive systems. It pushes people into crisis. It will result in institutional care, institutions and beds that we don’t have, care staff that we don’t have. And in the process, cause real harm to Coloradans.’ The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing … began notifying case managers across the state that the actions to trim costs were now on hold. The news came as a relief to family caregivers, who for months have shown up for various hearings, sometimes pushing loved ones in wheelchairs, pleading with policymakers not to make the cuts. The fight is hardly over, though. Medicaid spending has grown about 9% during the past decade, and the long-term care portion of Medicaid jumped to $4.1 billion from $2.9 billion in just three years. … The state health care department, armed with an August executive order from Gov. Jared Polis directing budget cuts, had already begun training case manager agencies on the cuts. … Last week, the department told those agencies to hold off.” Jennifer Brown, “Hours of tearful testimony result in pause to some Medicaid cuts for Coloradans with disabilities,” The Colorado Sun.
