Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Low Obamacare Premiums to Soften Blow for Those Losing Medicaid

Ganny Belloni
March 16, 2023, 5:44 PM

CMS will take active role during Medicaid eligibility checks

All states required to take 14 months to complete checks

One-third of the millions of individuals expected to lose Medicaid coverage as eligibility checks resume this spring will qualify for Affordable Care Act coverage with low or no premiums, a top Medicaid official said.

The Department of Health and Human Services believes the majority of those whose Medicaid eligibility will be redetermined will remain eligible, and the government is actively collaborating with states to make sure beneficiaries don’t lose coverage because of administrative issues, Daniel Tsai, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, said Thursday in an interview with reporters

see full article at :

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/low-obamacare-premiums-to-soften-blow-for-those-losing-medicaid

#AffordableCareAct #DepartmentofHealthandHumanServices #CenterforMedicaidandCHIPServices #DanielTsai #Medicaid #CMS

Letter: St. Joseph County Community Mental Health should let residents voice their concerns

Excerpt from: MLive (click for full article)

 

As superintendent of the St. Joseph County ISD there were times when I was tempted to try to silence critics and keep our school board meetings as brief as possible. However, there are some controversial topics that just won’t go away unless given full exposure to the light of day.

It has come to my attention that our county’s CMH Board is facing just such a situation with a current funding issue. According to what I have read in the press and based on what I have heard from families of developmentally disabled adults, CMH had to make some very difficult choices and reduce funding to these consumers.

I would like to encourage the CMH board to give these consumers the opportunity to share their plight. Even if the final decision is to maintain the cuts, these citizens deserve to have a voice. I recall situations when parents wanted more than we believed we could provide. In some cases the laws sided with the ISD. In others, the outcome required us to do more which always meant spending more money than we believed we could.

St. Joseph Community Mental Health cuts are endangering clients

Excerpt from: mlive.com (click for full article)

 

The fundamental right of St. Joseph County citizens to address their government about unilateral cuts to services will be tested March 26. That’s when about two dozen people with disabilities and their families will try for a third time to be heard by the Board of Community Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. These folks attempted to voice their concerns at the January meeting, when the board told them that because listening to so many people would be repetitive and time-consuming, they could only submit a summary statement.

The next month was spent dealing with painful cuts to services that in some cases are necessary for the consumers to live independently. More than 10 of those impacted filed appeals with the state quickly enough to have the cuts temporarily suspended until their appeals can be heard. Those unable to file appeals within five days have already had their services cut. There are over 20 local and state appeals pending at this time.

Agency staff assert that cuts are necessary because St. Joseph CMH has a growing budget deficit; however, it is inappropriate for the agency to unilaterally cut services because of a failure to manage their budget. Medically necessary services must legally be provided at the appropriate amount duration and scope to achieve the goals of the individual’s person-centered plan of services. The long-term supports provided are vital, often life-saving. Key questions remain: How did the budget deficit happen? What is being done to fix it? And, most importantly, how can it be prevented in the future? Understandably, these folks want answers. In fact, the entire community should demand answers, since taxpayer money is involved.

With all of this weighing on them, several victims of the cuts braved a snowstorm to attend the Feb. 26 board meeting. While 18 people with disabilities and their families overcame substantial transportation barriers to get to the meeting, not enough board members were compelled to do likewise. There was no quorum. No official meeting was held. Once again, the victims of the cuts were left out in the cold – this time literally as well as figuratively. The board did not care to listen for even a moment to the concerns of their fellow citizens. The victims of the cuts now hope to be heard at the March 26 CMH board meeting. I urge the staff and Board of Directors to ensure that these citizens are able to tell their very potent stories to the very individuals responsible for their distress.

 

Patricia E. Kefalas Dudek is a Farmington Hills attorney representing St. Joseph CMH consumers who have had their services cut and who have filed appeals.

Harkin Amendment Would Blunt Sequester Cuts to Special Ed

Excerpt from: Special Education Law Blog (click for full article)

 

Senator Tom Harkin has introduced an amendment to HR 933 that would mitigate the effects of the sequester in special education.  Here is a summary of the amendment.

If you are concerned about the sequester and its effect upon the education of children with disabilities, you should contact your Senators and representatives and ask them to vote for the amendment.  Our friends at the Council for Exceptional Children have established this tool to make it very easy to effectively contact your senators about this issue. You should personalize your message to reflect your feelings.

Sequester Cuts Hurting Seniors

Excerpt from: New Jersey Estate Planning and Elder Law Blog (click for full article)

 

How will programs that seniors rely on be affected? The good news is that big chunks of the budget are exempt from the sequester’s cuts, including Social Security, Medicaid, and veterans’ programs. But while there will be no change in benefits for these programs, the federal workforce that administers them will be slashed, leading to delays and frustration.

In the case of Social Security, for example, visitors to field offices or callers to the program’s 800-number will have longer waits, and some offices may close altogether. Checks for first-time Social Security beneficiaries will take longer to arrive and the backlog of Social Security disability claims will start ballooning again.

Medicare benefits will not change either, but there could be more crowded waiting rooms and fewer practitioners participating in the program because payments to Medicare providers will be cut by 2 percent across-the-board. Doctors and hospitals say the Medicare reductions will cost their industries more than 200,000 jobs this year alone. The 2 percent cut for doctors follows a series of previous reductions, which may translate into more doctors refusing to take Medicare patients.

Government Programs For Seniors: Budget Cuts That May Affect You in 2012

Excerpt from: Housing for Seniors (click for full article)

 

2011 was a year of dramatic budget battles and clashes over government spending. Many programs affecting seniors were cut as a result of the budget battles, while others were left unfunded. Here are a few programs that were affected.

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
The Older Americans Act Program 

The Social Security Disability Program
The Senior Community Service Employment Program
Community Service Block Grants
The Social Security Administration
The Qualified Individual Program
Medicare Physician Payments
The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Program

About the Sequester

Excerpt from: medpage today (click for full article)

 

With the sequester in place, some in Congress have embraced it, believing that these across-the-board cuts can actually help address our long-term fiscal problems. They are badly mistaken.

This Congress has not even begun to grapple with what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has called our greatest fiscal challenge: rising healthcare costs. In fact, the debate around the sequester has diverted attention from the more fundamental goals of "bending the curve" of rising per capita healthcare costs and getting more value for our public and private healthcare dollars.

The need for further action to address these longer-term problems remains. Congress has three choices: continued, indiscriminate meat-ax cuts like the sequester; shifting of federal costs onto consumers, health plans or employers; or a smart savings approach that finally addresses the enormous levels of waste and inefficiency in our health system.

Only Ryan Takes on the 800 Lb. Gorilla--Medicare

The Fiscal Times (click for full article)

 

Before we get to Ryan’s new ideas, we should recall his old plans for budgetary reform. When Ryan first became chair of the House Budget Committee in 2011, he brought a rafter full of proposals for reforming entitlement programs, the biggest driver of annual budget deficits and national debt, both now and especially in the future. 

His first budget overhauled the approach to Medicare and Medicaid, relying on market-based cost containment systems to create a fixed-contribution system.  He assumed that private insurers would stabilize costs, which opponents almost instantly derided as “vouchers” – even though it used the same kind of exchange system for seniors that Barack Obama and Democrats had imposed for everyone else in the Affordable Care Act the previous year. Democrats created TV ads showing a Ryan look-alike pushing a wheelchair with an elderly woman in it over a cliff, in one of the least subtle attack ads of recent memory.

From One Budget Fight to the Next

Excerpt from: New York Times (click for full article)

 

Unable to stop the sequester’s job-killing spending cuts, President Obama now says he wants to move past the endless wars of budget attrition. Though he still wants a long-term deficit deal, he said last week, it is time to turn to immigration, gun control, universal preschool, a higher minimum wage and voting reform.

But Republicans are not going to allow that pivot. Most are unalterably opposed to all of those initiatives, and want to keep their focus on cutting domestic programs and fighting off tax increases. At a time when Republicans are divided on many social issues, the budget wars are one of the few things that unite them.

A variety of insidious new budget proposals are now emerging from the House. On Wednesday, by a 267-to-151 vote, the House approved a stopgap spending resolution to keep the government running for the last half of the fiscal year, replacing the one that expires on March 27.

Chained CPI Change Could Hit Veterans' Benefits

Excerpt from: AARP (click for full article)

 

A proposed formula to calculate cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other federal benefits — called the "chained CPI" (C-CPI) — would save money for the government, some budget experts say. But it would also take a disproportionate toll on one group — disabled veterans.

AARP calculates that a 30-year-old veteran of the Iraq or Afghanistan war who has no children and is 100 percent disabled would likely lose about $100,000 in disability compensation by age 75 (calculated in today's dollars), compared with benefits under the current cost-of-living formula. Over a 10-year period, 23 million veterans would lose $17 billion in compensation and pension benefits, according to AARP calculations.

The C-CPI would also reduce benefits for current and future retirees, costing the average 65-year-old nonveteran retiree about $3,900 in Social Security benefits by age 75.

The Congressional Budget Office says the C-CPI would rise about 0.3 percentage points less each year than the current consumer price index measure. Proponents of C-CPI "grossly underestimate the impact of what may seem like little nicks over time," says AARP senior legislative representative Timothy Gearan.

12 Ways the Sequester Will Screw the Poor

Excerpt from: Mother Jones (click for full article)

 

When Congress agreed on automatic slash-and-burn spending cuts in 2011—if no big bipartisan deficit reduction package could be achieved—the cuts were designed to be so unpalatable that Republicans and Democrats would feel compelled to concoct a better deal to replace them. President Barack Obama says avoiding the deep cuts, called sequestration in DC-speak, should be a "no-brainer." But Republicans are increasingly saying the sequester won't be so bad. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said Thursday that the $85 billion in cuts "would really help a long way and get us on a sustainable fiscal path."

One problem is that many poor Americans rely on services the government provides. The White House released a report Sunday emphasizing the ways in which the cuts will hurt the middle class, but although important entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps are exempt from sequestration, many programs for low-income families are on the chopping block.