Dear Editor,
I’ve been reading reports regarding the proposals from Congress’s Republican members and trying to identify the effect the provisions of those proposals are likely to have on the people of Weston County.
I think the most significant effect will be how the proposals are likely to affect the elderly. Currently, about 70 percent of the residents at the Manor are covered by Medicaid. Medicaid covers more than 74 million Americans, including low-income people, families, and kids, as well as pregnant women, people with disabilities, and the elderly. The New York Times detailed the impact of Medicaid cuts on nursing home care in a story this weekend, and reports that — even though they only make up six percent of all Medicaid enrollees — those who use long-term services like nursing homes account for about 42 percent of total Medicaid spending.
Cuts to Medicaid spending could put those services on the chopping block. Republicans have proposed cutting Medicaid by nearly $800 billion. Most of these residents will receive significantly worse care when the cuts occur. Up to 35 percent of those now on Medicaid will lose coverage entirely.
Let’s do the math. Nearly three quarters of the residents in the Manor are currently covered by Medicaid. 35 percent of those residents, about a third of them, will lose Medicaid coverage. Since they have already spent down their assets in order to qualify for Medicaid, someone else will have to pick up the tab. One solution a few other states have resorted to is making the adult children of those residents pay all or part of the costs for their parents’ care.
The common practice for elderly people who require nursing home care is for them to use their savings/assets to fund their care until their assets are expended sufficiently to qualify for Medicaid long-term care assistance. They then use those benefits to pay for their care.
By law, state Medicaid programs must cover nursing homes. When federal funding for Medicaid (which covers over half the costs for care under that program) are slashed to the extent proposed in the Republican Senate and House proposals, nursing homes that accept Medicaid patients will be some of the first providers to feel the pain. The chopping of over half of the money currently provided by the federal government to fund long-term nursing home care is going to cause either a dramatic reduction in the quality of care being provided to nursing home residents or it is going to cause a deep reduction in the number of residents being served, or more likely, both.
In order to maintain the programs now providing medical care to the elderly, in addition to the programs providing care to children and other current Medicaid beneficiaries, Wyoming would need to increase taxes significantly. The state legislature has been wrestling very hard to decide which programs the state has been managing for the past few years to cut or significantly reduce. The likelihood of them raising taxes to fund shortfalls in the federal government’s contributions to Medicaid programs is questionable.
Assertions by advocates of the proposed healthcare legislation assert that legislation would preserve protections for the most vulnerable and needy. I haven’t found the language that will accomplish that result.
—Patrick Crow