By Julie Ward, Director of Health Policy and Nicole Jorwic, Director of Rights Policy. This post originally appeared on The Arc Blog.
They say that if you want to know about a person, look at how they spend their money; to know the values of a nation, the same is true. The current Affordable Care Act and Medicaid fight is showing a side of the political system that is disheartening and shameful. The American Health Care Act, passed by the U. S. House of Representatives, lowers taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations and pays for it by taking over $800 billion from the Medicaid program which serves low income children, seniors, people with disabilities, parents, and other adults.
The fundamental injustice of transferring wealth from low income people to businesses and wealthy people is compounded by the fact that these deep cuts in Medicaid will not make private health insurance more affordable or available, the stated goals of supporters of the AHCA. Instead the AHCA dismantles the main source of funding for long term supports and services (LTSS) for seniors and people with disabilities. The demand for these services, such as help to stay in a person’s own home, will grow as the population ages. Instead of addressing the need for an LTSS policy in a positive way, it makes devastating cuts and places a per capita cap on the Medicaid program.
An estimated 24 million people will lose their insurance coverage and millions are at risk of losing the supports and services that help them live in the community. Every one of those numbers represents a person. A person who will no longer be able to feel the peace of mind of health coverage, a person who now will worry that their guarantee to services under Medicaid is irreparably changed, a person whose supports to assist them to work are at risk, and a person who now has to fear that their son or daughter will end up in an institution, when they have fought their whole lives to keep him/her in the community.
Medicaid is the main source of funding for over 77% of the supports and services that individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD) use to live in the community and has been able to grow because of the widespread bipartisan support. They have had bipartisan support because disability knows no political, or geographical, ethnic, or socioeconomic boundaries. These supports and services provide dignity to people with I/DD by providing help with meals, bathing and dressing, toileting, in-home skilled nursing, and communication support, to name but a few. These supports are critical to people with disabilities to be able to live their lives in the community. In many cases, they can be the difference between life and death.
We fear that because home and community based services are not mandatory services, they will be cut first. States will return to outdated modes of serving people with disabilities, congregating large numbers of individuals in facilities with inadequate staffing and no real-life opportunities. The per capita cap proposal will pave a path backwards to institutional care and segregated services.
The AHCA has many other troubling provisions and The Arc has developed a summary of how the bill impacts people with disabilities.