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VOR Weekly E-Mail Update

August 10, 2007

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  NOTICE: VOR CHANGE OF ADDRESS; OTHER VOR CONTACT INFORMATION

2.  Illinois:  Lincoln Developmental Center may be closer to reopening

3. Virginia: CVTC Care Debate Far From Over

4. California: Safety net for Medi-Cal has run out of cash

Coming Up:

August 17 – Focus on Social Security Crisis;

August 24 - There will be no Weekly E-Mail Update on August 24. Tamie will be on vacation.

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1. NOTICE:  VOR CHANGE OF ADDRESS; OTHER VOR CONTACT INFORMATION

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See also, Staff

As of August 1, 2007, the address for VOR tax deductible dues and donations has changed:

Tax Deductible Dues/Contributions

VOR

836 S. Arlington Heights Rd., #351 

Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

847-258-5273 fax /  kluck146@comcast.net

The Elk Grove Village address replaces the Rolling Meadows office, which closed August 1, 2007

Other VOR addresses are as follows:

Govt Relations/Advocacy

Tamie Hopp, Director, Govt. Relations & Advocacy

P.O. Box 1208

Rapid City, SD 57709-1208

605-399-1624 direct /  605-399-1631 fax

Tamie327@hotmail.com

Washington, D.C.

Larry Innis, Washington Representative

529 Bay Dale Court

Arnold, MD 21012-2312            

410-757-1VOR phone/fax  /  LarryInnis@aol.com        

Development

Kelly Guesnier

4939 W. Interprid Lane, #201

Boise, Idaho 83703

208-853-1825  /  208-724-4117 cell

dreamweaverstill@hotmail.com

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2.  Illinois:  Lincoln Developmental Center may be closer to reopening (Reprint, also ran in 8/3 in VOR Update)

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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Pantagraph

By Kurt Erickson
 

Efforts to reopen part of a state home for developmentally disabled residents may have gotten a small boost earlier this week.

The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board gave its approval to allow the state to operate four, 10-bed homes for developmentally disabled residents on the grounds of the former Lincoln Developmental Center.

State Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, said he was “encouraged” by the health board’s decision. He supports opening the four homes because it could allow residents of the facility to be closer to their families.

Similarly, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, which once represented hundreds of workers at the facility, said it was welcome news.

”There is clearly a need for housing these individuals in the Lincoln area,” said AFSCME Council 31 spokesman Anders Lindall.

But a spokesman for the agency that oversees the facility downplayed the latest move as little more than shuffling paperwork.

”Nothing has changed,” said Tom Green, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Asked what the board’s move means for the future of the facility and the 60 jobs it might create, Green said, “Truthfully, nothing.”

The institution was shuttered five years ago by former Gov. George Ryan after incidents of abuse and neglect began surfacing at the facility.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich promised to reopen the institution when he was on the campaign trail in 2002, but backed off after opponents of large institutions such as LDC waged a campaign to move the state toward providing smaller, community-based settings for people with developmental disabilities.

As a compromise, officials agreed to build the four homes on the 103-acre grounds at a cost to taxpayers of about $4.6 million. But, they have sat empty and unused, costing the state nearly $1 million per year to keep from deteriorating.

Green said the governor hopes to get funding to operate the four homes in this year’s budget, which remains unfinished.

The estimated $5.9 million operating price tag is buried in the governor’s original budget proposal in a spending request by the Department of Human Services.

“DHS is working on plans to use the buildings, but no final decisions yet,” said Green.

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3. Virginia: CVTC Care Debate Far From Over

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Lynchburg News & Advance (Editorial)
Monday, July 30, 2007

The future of Central Virginia Training Center and its 500 residents has come full circle - from talk of a new facility about a year and a half ago to more current plans for renovations at the state institution in Madison Heights.

Discussions along the way were heated at times over whether the institution would reduce the number of its severely mentally and physically handicapped residents from 500 to 300. And if so, where would the state place the residents for whom it no longer had space?
 

That discussion will continue to take place, but a state official said last week that skyrocketing costs have scuttled plans for a new 300-bed institution. The initial cost of $94 million has been projected by architects to be closer to $163 million, plus additional costs for architecture and engineering services.

"We realized this wasn't going to fly," Lee Price told members of the Reconstruction Task Force. "It wasn't going to be something we could get through the legislative process." Price is director of mental retardation services for the state department that oversees the five mental retardation
facilities located around Virginia.

Price said the emphasis now would be on renovating and bringing the training center's residential buildings up to required life and safety codes. He said the state would also focus on investing in the community to increase housing opportunities for the mentally retarded and increasing the role of the training centers as a resource for services not available elsewhere in the community.

That - and normal attrition - may help with the downsizing of CVTC, but it still doesn't resolve the downsizing issues on the minds of many parents and others concerned about residents at the center, which has a staff of some 1,400 and is Amherst County's largest employer.

Those families and advocates of the residents were concerned that the new construction project would require placing about 200 multi-handicapped mentally retarded people into community settings that were either inadequate or inappropriate. If the renovation plans still call for a CVTC with a maximum of 300 residents, those concerns are still valid. Where will the other 200 or so residents be placed?

Price spoke of a re-focused, smaller training center concept "that helps as a community resource." That sounds like placement of some residents in group homes that would use the training center as a resource for whatever needs arise. Which is well and good, but is probably not the answer that advocates of residents want to hear.

So the focus at the training center has now changed from a newly constructed building or buildings to renovation of existing buildings at the center. But the real debate remains unchanged. And that is where to place the residents for whom there will not be space in the renovated facility. Care of the residents - every single one of them - remains the most
important consideration for CVTC as it plans for the future. Indeed, it's the only consideration.

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4. California: Safety net for Medi-Cal has run out of cash

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By Ed Mendel

The Union-Tribune

July 28, 2007

A $2 billion fund created to keep money flowing to Medi-Cal providers when a legislative deadlock delays a new state budget has hit empty, reducing payments yesterday to HMOs and threatening payments to hospitals and nursing homes due Thursday.

The state has been without a budget since the new fiscal year began July 1, blocked by Senate Republicans who are demanding deeper spending cuts. Deadlocks that leave the state without a budget after July 1 are routine – it's happened 16 times in the last two decades.

One reason for the deadlocks, which left the state without a budget until Sept. 5 five years ago, is that there are few consequences. Legislation and court decisions keep much of the money flowing, even when there is no money.

The $2 billion Medi-Cal fund, created in 1998, gets $1 billion from the state and a $1 billion federal match to keep money flowing to the providers of vital health care services when there is no state budget. Medi-Cal is the state version of Medicaid, the government program that provides health care coverage for the poor and disabled.

The state Department of Finance said the fund was authorized for a fixed amount, $2 billion, which was believed to be enough to cover two months without a budget. But the amount has not kept pace with inflation, and an accounting change has increased payment rates.

“Basically, the needle hit 'E' today,” H.D. Palmer, the Finance spokesman, said yesterday. He said Medi-Cal was able to make only a partial payment yesterday for managed care provided by HMOs, or health maintenance organizations.

“The check-write today was supposed to be $223 million,” Palmer said. “Medi-Cal will only be able to pay $143 million.”

If there is no budget, Medi-Cal will not be able to make an estimated $227 million payment Thursday to hospitals and nursing homes. The president of the California Hospital Association, C. Duane Dauner, warned that not getting the payment could be “disastrous” for some hospitals.

“For hospitals that serve a high number of Medi-Cal patients, such as rural, public, children's and other safety-net hospitals, this can amount to 60 percent or more of their revenues,” Dauner said in a statement. “Many of these facilities operate on very thin financial margins and do not have the reserves to operate without Medi-Cal payments.”

Jim Gomez, president of the California Association of Health Facilities, said in a statement that small homes that care for the developmentally disabled, typically with just six beds, often receive all of their funding from Medi-Cal.

“The impasse must end,” Gomez said. “If the state budget is not enacted within the next few days, the state will not be able to pay providers for 24-hour care for nearly 6,000 developmentally disabled individuals living in more than 1,000 community-based small group homes throughout California.”

Legislation sponsored by the health facilities association to double the Medi-Cal contingency fund to $4 billion has failed two years in a row. This year's bill, AB 237, was by Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks.

The association said opponents of the bill included the Schwarzenegger administration's Department of Health Services. An analysis of AB 237 by the staff of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, where the bill failed to pass, said evidence did not support a need for the bill.

In the past four years, the analysis said, the balances in the Medical Providers Interim Fund by the time the budget passed were $886 million, $1.2 billion, $1.4 billion and $2 billion. “Such significant balances indicate that the proposed doubling of the current $2 billion appropriation is not warranted,” the committee analysis said.

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Tamie Hopp

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