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Advocates defend service for elderly, disabled care Capitol
news bureau, July 18, 2003
The
state Department of Health and Hospitals went to federal court Wednesday
to try to get out from under the requirement. The
personal-care attendant program is a key part of an agreement settling a
federal lawsuit known as the Barthelemy case. The lawsuit alleges lack of
home and community care options for the state's elderly and disabled. More
than 90 percent of the state's Medicaid long-term care dollars are spent
on nursing home care -- some $600 million annually. "We
are definitely going to take the next step to enforce the
settlement," said Lois Simpson, executive director of The Advocacy
Center, which takes up the cause of the rights of the elderly. Advocacy
Center attorneys filed the Barthelemy lawsuit. "We
are going back into court. We can't lose anything. I frankly don't think
we are going to lose," Simpson said. She
said plaintiffs' attorneys will tell the court that the DHH proposal to
revise the settlement agreement is unacceptable because it doesn't
guarantee access to home and community-based services. DHH
submitted the revised plan at the direction of the Louisiana Legislature,
which doesn't want to launch the open-ended personal care attendant
program. The
PCA program offers residents in-home help with such things as bathing,
dressing and eating. DHH
asked the federal court and plaintiffs to agree to use the $28.2 million
appropriated to expand the current elderly and disabled adult program to
serve another 2,000 people instead of embarking on the PCA option. The
current program, which would offer a more varied range of services,
including PCAs, would be capped instead of available to all who need help
and qualify. "Basically,
we want to continue the personal care option part of our agreement that
DHH agreed was valuable to a lot of people and offer an intermediate level
of services to people who need them," Simpson said. The
DHH proposal would lead to limitations on services and "sets the
whole state up for a waiting list," Simpson said. Under
the settlement agreement, anyone who qualified for in-home personal-care
services would get them, Simpson said. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
