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

$7.9 Billion in Improper Social Security Payments in FY 2012

Excerpt from: CNS News (click for full article)

 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) needs to focus on "program integrity," a polite term for reducing fraud and payment errors, the agency's inspector general told Congress last week.

Reducing improper payments is one of the challenges facing the next SSA commissioner, Patrick O'Carroll, Jr., the agency's inspector general, told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security on April 26.

In fiscal year 2012, the Social Security Administration reported $4.7 billion in improper payments in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a 9.2 percent improper payment rate. (SSI is funded by general tax revenues, not payroll taxes. It helps elderly, blind, and/or disabled people who are poor.)

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides $11 million under Section 811 Program

Excerpt from: Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (click for full article)

 

Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) Secretary Raymond A. Skinner has announced that the State of Maryland will receive approximately $11 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through HUD's Section 811 Project Rental Assistance Demonstration Program (PRA Demo).  The PRA Demo program provides rental assistance to extremely low-income persons with disabilities, many of whom are transitioning out of institutional settings or are at high risk of homelessness.

 

"In Maryland, we believe in the dignity of every individual and that there is no such thing as a spare American," said Governor Martin O'Malley. "Working together with our local, state and federal partners, we've set out to build a strong, multi-faceted approach to combat homelessness in our State and protect the needs of our most vulnerable Marylanders. Thanks to the support of President Obama and our partners at HUD, Maryland now has additional resources to provide rental assistance to our neighbors with disabilities."

 

"We are pleased to support the Department of Housing and Community Development in its efforts to offer lasting solutions for persons who might otherwise be institutionalized or living on our streets," said Jane C.W. Vincent, Regional Administrator of HUD's Mid-Atlantic Region.  "Through the combined efforts of federal and state agencies, real progress is being made in preventing and ending homelessness."

 

GOP Leaders Refuse To Name Candidates For Medicare Cost Control Board

Excerpt from: Kaiser Health News (click for full article)

 

House Speaker John Boehner tells reporters that he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will not nominate anyone to serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

Out Of State Guardianship Act Awaits Governor's Signature

Excerpt from: Wall Street Journal (click for full article)

 

Elder Law Attorney Ronald Fatoullah, principal attorney of Ronald Fatoullah & Associates, was honored at the annual meeting of the Elder Law Section of the New York State Bar Association in January, 2013 in recognition of his "advocacy, drafting and persistence in creating the legislative initiative for the New York State Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Act."

Now, both the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate have passed the New York State Uniform Adult Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Act (the "Act" or "Uniform Act"). The bill now awaits Governor Cuomo's signature. When signed, New York will be the 37th state (plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia) to have adopted the Act.

With an increasingly mobile society, multi-state guardianship issues are not uncommon. These issues arise among snowbirds who may be residents of New York but spend their winters in Florida or another state, caregivers who may be moving sick family members in or out of New York, individuals who may be utilizing out of state health care providers, individuals who wander in or out of New York, and elderly persons who are victims of "granny snatching" into or out of New York State.

The Uniform Guardianship Act simplifies the law governing multi-state guardianship actions and will make it easier for individuals to act as guardians for their elderly parents and relatives, even if they live in states other than New York.

Is a new study of Medicaid a game changer?

Excerpt from: Politifact (click for full article)

 

The new study in the New England Journal of Medicine was published almost a month after our fact-check ran, and unlike the studies we evaluated initially, it was specifically designed to compare health outcomes for Medicaid patients against those who are uninsured.

Did the new study improve Cruz’s case?

We should note that we evaluate claims based only on evidence known at the time. We don’t go back and re-evaluate if new facts come to light later, because it doesn’t make sense to give people credit for evidence they couldn’t possibly have known about at the time.

In this case, though, we were curious about whether this study changed the debate on this important issue going forward. So we decided to take a fresh look.

The new paper represents the second phase of a study coauthored by Katherine Baicker of Harvard University and Amy N. Finkelstein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2008, Oregon expanded its Medicaid rolls, but only had enough funding to cover a portion of residents who wanted to sign up. To distribute spots in the program, officials set up a lottery.

The researchers compared 6,387 lottery winners to 5,842 who didn’t get a slot, tracking factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, depression, and out-of-pocket medical spending.

The study produced mixed results. That has led both critics and advocates of expanding Medicaid to rush to portray the study’s results as evidence for their side.  Supporters of expanding Medicaid are pointing to the findings that beneficiaries had less depression and more financial security. Catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures, for example, were "nearly eliminated."

Here’s what the Oregon Medicaid study really said

Excerpt from: Washington Post (click for full article)

 

A few years back, Oregon found the money to add 10,000 residents to the state’s Medicaid program. The only problem was that there were 90,000 residents who qualified for the program and desperately wanted in. So the state held a lottery. Welcome to the American health-care system. Greatest in the world, folks.

But 80,000 Oregonians’ loss was science’s gain. The lottery gave researchers an opportunity that’s almost never available in policymaking: They could create a randomized controlled study — the absolute gold-standard of experimental design — comparing the health outcomes of the lucky Oregonians who received Medicaid to those who didn’t. It would be the first time that kind of study had even been used to compare the insured and the uninsured.

The initial batch of results was released in August 2012. The data covered the first year of the Medicaid expansion and found that the folks on Medicaid were getting more care, reporting better health (both physical and mental), and seeing fewer financial problems than the people who weren’t on Medicaid.

The second set of results was released Wednesday. The data now covers two years and, importantly, includes clinical measures of health rather than relying on the reports of the study participants. These results are more mixed, but also more telling.

Here’s what we can say with certainty: Medicaid works as health insurance.

Colorado Weighs Reopening Psychiatric Hospital For Homeless

Excerpt from: NPR (click for full article)

 

Last summer's mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., led Gov. John Hickenlooper to call for stricter gun control and in mental health care.

Several significant gun bills passed, and a package of mental health reforms is moving forward. But there may not be enough support to win funding for 300 new inpatient psychiatric beds.

That by the Democratic governor would bring mentally ill and addicted homeless people to , at one time a psychiatric hospital for veterans and then a prison. The facility, near the tiny town of , has been closed for two years.

Medicaid Expansion: Where Do States Stand?

Excerpt from: Kaiser Health News (click for full article)

 

Stateline reports that seven states could still go either way on pursuing this element of the health law. Kaiser Health News examines Arkansas' approach, viewed by many as a "deal-making compromise" for some states. Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers may be out of time to reach a deal, while some Nebraska lawmakers are attempting to break a logjam. In Ohio, the sparring continues.

Proponents of Community-Based Waiver Supports Call For More Funding

Excerpt from: WWNO (click for full article)

 

Despite the threat of rain, proponents of state-funded supports that allow developmentally disabled individuals to live at home – rather than in institutions or group homes – rallied at the state capitol Wednesday.

The gatherers, organized by the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council, called on lawmakers to support more funding for community-based waiver services.

Louisiana’s state operating budget for the year 2013-2014 includes funding for 75 additional waiver slots. But that barely scratches the surface of a waiting list that’s over 9,600 people long.

Keynote speaker Kay Marcel told the crowd that waiver services have enabled her son Joel, who has down-syndrome, to get a job and be independent.

The Assemblyman, His Brother, And Funding For The Disabled

Excerpt from: WGRZ (click for full article)