From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

A disability watchdog organization has filed suit against Washington state, arguing that hasty budget cuts threaten to push some 900 adults with disabilities into nursing homes.

The suit seeks to delay funding cuts to a nursing care program that allows adults with disabilities to live in a state-run group home and still receive Medicaid-supported health care services.

“The risk of this transition is being entirely borne by individuals, many of whom are frail, many of whom are elderly, all of whom are disabled,” said [Andrea] Brenneke, an attorney for the Washington Long-Term Care Ombudsman. “What we have is a system that appears to have failed entirely in protecting the constitutional rights of these people. … (The state) can’t just cut them off.”

The attorney for the state, Assistant Attorney General Michael Young, responded that the state was not abandoning people and that, in some cases, former providers were helping their clients bridge the gap by donating their time as charity.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm and is filed under budget, community services, group homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post