Tell Congress to Block Bad Medicaid Rules

There is hope that Congress will soon take action to block Medicaid rules that are likely to harm people with disabilities. A bill called Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 (HR 5613) is moving in the House, led by John Dingell, the Chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. We hope for a full House vote in the next few weeks. The Senate Finance Committee is ready and waiting for the bill after it passes the House Floor.

While the bill will help protect the whole disability community, two of the rules stand out for people with physical disabilities:

• Under the rehabilitation rule, Medicaid is going to limit the kind of rehabilitation services it will pay for. If someone with disabilities on Medicaid needs services such as help with community skills training or supervised employment, Medicaid will not allow that to be reimbursed anymore unless this bill passes.
  
• Another rule limits targeted case management services. For example, if someone uses Medicaid and needs a case manager to help to have multiple services put together (housing, health, transportation, etc), the case manager may not be able to help find needed services other than health care. Also, the rule puts a limit on the amount of time that case managers can help people find needed services when transitioning from a nursing home or institution to the community. This would force people to stay in institutions needlessly.
  

We want this bill to pass – so that these rules cannot go into effect until April 2009. This gives time for a new Congress and a new President to fix the rules permanently.

Please contact your own Representative in Congress and ask him or her to support this important piece of legislation. Go to www.house.gov and click on Write Your Representative (left top of House home page). If you enter your zip code, you will be referred to your own Representative and a way to send an email.