FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 24, 2011

Bruce Darling, President & CEO, bdarling@cdrnys.org

Diane Coleman, Director of Advocacy, dcoleman@cdrnys.org

Melanie Shaw, Executive Director/NYAIL, mshaw@ilny.org

Disability Rights Community Stunned by Surprise Early Vote of Governor Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team

Today, as the first of day of scheduled meetings of the Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) came to a close, disability rights advocates were stunned when a surprise vote was taken. This curtailed discussion of the package of proposals redesigning the Medicaid program and eliminated any opportunity for discussion by the MRT of proposals from the disability rights community. These were estimated to save $1 billion over the next five years. Disturbingly, these recommendations were never included in the list of proposals presented to the MRT.

“Disability rights advocates testified at the MRT hearings across the state,” said Melanie Shaw, Executive Director of the New York Association on Independent Living. “We repeatedly submitted specific proposals for achieving significant savings in Medicaid long term care with a detailed fiscal analysis. We saw our recommendations typed into the hearing record, but they were completely dropped from anything given to the MRT to consider. Now the dialogue has been shut down early.”

These proposals included implementation of the Community First Choice Option which would have assured that seniors and people with disabilities could remain in the community rather than be forced into an institution while generating additional federal funding of $90 million for the state coffers. “CMS just release proposed rules on the Community First Choice Option this week; I can’t believe that the MRT would turn its back on $90 million in savings,” said Bruce Darling, President and CEO of the Center for Disability Rights.

“Essentially, our proposals urged that the state reverse the institutional bias in Medicaid and favor home and community based services as the first choice,” said Diane Coleman, CDR’s Director of Advocacy. “We also recommended increased reliance on consumer directed approaches to home care.”

Today, the MRT did a cursory review of the large package of proposals and members of the public are struggling to understand what exactly was approved by the group. A major concern is what appears to be a proposal to implement managed care. Based on today’s presentation, it appears that personal care services will be placed within a managed care model first while nursing facilities remain outside that model. Disability rights advocates are concerned that this approach fails to address the fact that spending on nursing facilities in New York makes up the bulk of long term care spending in the state for seniors and people with physical disabilities and is growing far faster than the spending on personal care services.

“The proposal as they presented it is backwards,” said Ms. Coleman. They should start with the most expensive side of the system.” Advocates are also concerned that by shifting to a managed care model the state may lose savings attributed to consumer directed personal care services, but most importantly, advocates fear that people with the most significant disabilities could easily be forced into nursing facilities when these managed care organizations want to limit their responsibility for costs of individuals with greater needs.

Advocates were hopeful that the planned two-day meeting would have elicited thoughtful analysis by the MRT members. However, in ending the meeting after only one day which was largely presentations by DOH staff, such discussion wasn’t possible. It is clear that certain people on the team were aware that the process was going to be shut down today. “Unfortunately the only other thing that is clear from today’s meeting was that today’s process was a disingenuous,” said Darling, “and it’s outrageous that the state has railroaded this plan through without letting these recommendations be publicly debated or even seen on their website in advance.”

Despite being concerned about how their proposals were excluded from the supposedly public process, advocates recognize that some of the worst proposals were not included in the plan. Additionally, Ms. Coleman noted, “The good news is that, because the MRT failed to include our cost savings proposals in their plan, we have millions of dollars in savings that we can suggest that could be used to mitigate some of the most harmful proposals that the MRT approved.”

The Center for Disability Rights, Inc. (CDR) is a non-profit service and advocacy organization devoted to the full integration, independence and civil rights of people of all ages with all types of disabilities. With services in 11 counties in New York State and offices in Rochester, Corning, Geneva, and Albany, CDR represents the concerns of thousands of people with disabilities.