INDIANAPOLIS — In a week filled with behind-closed-doors negotiations over last-minute changes to the $28 billion budget bill, the families of disabled children who receive Medicaid assistance from the state may have gotten a break.
A provision in the budget bill that would have shifted more expenses to those families as a cost-cutting move for the state appears to be stalled and headed for a study committee for a closer look at its financial impact. A final vote on the budget is expected by Friday, the last day of the session.
The push to remove the provision came from both Republican and Democratic legislators who wanted more information about a program that serves 1,500 families, but has 19,000 other families on a waiting list.
“We need to be able to make an informed decision,” said Sen. Randy Head, a Republican from Logansport. “And we need the data to do that.”
State Rep. Terri Austin, a Democrat from Anderson, said legislators on both sides of the aisle have been hearing from families of disabled children currently covered by the state program alarmed by the budget provision. “We need to make sure that while we’re cutting costs, we're not cutting on the backs of the most vulnerable members of our society.”
State Sen. Jean Leising, a Republican from Oldenburg, said that while she’s concerned about the program’s escalating costs to the state, she wants to make sure changes to the program are done in a way that won’t harm children. “We just need to slow down to take a look at this,” Leising said. “If our constitution calls us to do anything as taxpayers, it’s to take care of people who truly can’t take care of themselves.”
The issue involves Medicaid waivers granted to families of children with serious development disabilities to help them cover the costs of their care. There are about 1,500 families covered by the program, while another 19,000 are on a waiting list.
A provision in the budget bill aimed at reducing that waiting list would have given the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration the state agency that administers the Medicaid waiver program the authority to consider family income in determining whether a developmentally disabled child qualifies for Medicaid coverage.
As of Tuesday, that provision was on hold, and replaced by language that directs the Family and Social Services Administration to conduct a study on the impact that income requirements, along with other changes, would have on the program’s costs. Results of the study are to be presented to the legislature’s Joint Commission on Medicaid Oversight by July 2012.
“It’s a grace period,” said Kim Dodson, associate executive director of The Arc of Indiana, an advocacy and service organization for the developmentally disabled. “It allows time for some thoughtful study.”
State Sen. Vaneta Becker, the sole Republican who voted against the Senate version of the budget bill because she said it cut too much funding for families in need, said pushing some families off the Medicaid waiver program to reduce the waiting list of 19,000 families wasn’t the answer. “We all want them off the waiting list,” Becker said. “But it’s going to take more money to get them off the waiting list.”
The proposed change was greeted with some cautious optimism by parents like Jennifer Charpentier, the mother of five children, including 3-year-old twins who suffered brain damage at birth, have multiple disabilities and are wheelchair-bound. Only one child has received the Medicaid waiver which covers about $10,000 a month in medical care and related expenses, while the other is still on the waiting list.
Charpentier has brought her boys to the Statehouse this week so legislators could meet them.
She and her husband, who is a pediatrician, likely would have been impacted by the budget proposal that would have allowed the state to consider family income in determining whether a developmentally disabled child qualifies for Medicaid.
She said that proposal ignored the costs of caring for children with severe disabilities, including the $3 million in medical claims that her boys have incurred.
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