Virginia governor shelves plans for expansion of community-based services for mentally disabled people

From the DC Examiner:

Gov. Tim Kaine plans to shelve a planned expansion of community-based care for the mentally disabled in Virginia, drawing opposition from lawmakers and advocates who cite a swiftly growing need for the program.

Despite the decades-long trend away from institutional care, Medicaid still requires states to fund a waiver to provide care for a mentally retarded person outside of the facilities. Medicaid is a federal health program for the poor and disabled.

The waivers in many cases offer care to disabled Virginians when no other care is available, often after a parent or caretaker dies.

Kaine is proposing to delay 200 new slots in the program approved last year by the General Assembly that were supposed to open in April.

The nearly $6 million cut is a sliver of the $3 billion legislators need to pare from the two-year budget when they return to Richmond Wednesday.

Mental health advocates, however, are preparing for a fight, and lawmakers already are detailing plans to reinstate the funding.

The waiting list for a slot in the program now stands at 4,500, with half the cases considered “urgent.” Each year, about 400 more people need a waiver. Virginia now pays for about 8,000 slots in the program.

“I don’t believe we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg, to be honest,” said Nancy Mercer, executive director of the Arc of Northern Virginia, an advocacy group for the mentally disabled. “I think we have a lot of people in the community who have never even touched the system who have aging parents.”

Lawmakers last year, despite struggling with slowing revenues, approved 600 new waiver slots. Of those, 400 opened up in July. Kaine’s proposed budget reductions would postpone the remaining 200 slots to at least 2011.

Lawmakers are pinning their hopes on reversing the painful cut through President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, which could include new infusions of Medicaid funds at the state level.

Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax, a health care planner, is proposing a budget amendment that would incorporate that money into hundreds of new waiver slots and a bill that would eliminate the waiting list by 2018.

He said Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, is proposing a similar bill in the house.

“In the urgent category, there are people who are at risk of abuse, there are people who are at risk of homelessness,” Barker said. “It’s a very serious problem.”