By: Lisa Greer

Lisa Greer — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 21:30:53 +0000

In order to truly effectuate home-based medical/social support options for the disabled, there needs to be uniform, national eligibility standards for home-based care across the 50 states, with portabiity of benefits. The current system, which entails hetrogenous waiver eligibility requirements under 1915(c) chains the disabled beneficiary of state Medicaid to the particular state of eligibility origination. There is no pragmatic ability to transfer these benefits to a new, out of state locale, due to enrollment caps and lengthy waiting lists. This not only locks the disabled into a geographic catchment–but their families as well, contributing to further illiquidity in the labor market. Entire families ar precluded from re-locating to take advantage of better employment/education opportunities, because the emotional price of abadoning the disabled MediCaid waiver recipient is to high, and the cost of abandoning the disabled individual’s waiver benefits tantamount to financial suicide.

Comments on: ‘Our homes, not nursing homes,’ disability activists tell Obama

By: Lisa Greer