States face major budget shortfalls. Medicaid cuts are being proposed.
A major barrier to complying with the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision: funding.
States look to optional community services to take some if not all cuts.
Money Follows the Person, MFP, to the rescue! Allow nursing homes' or other institutional services' funds to be moved from that budget line item to the line item thnsas, Utah, Maryland and Pennsylvania all having success with MFP.
Included in the President 2005 budget, a major component of the President's New Freedom Initiative to integrate people with disabilities in the community.
Gives people the freedom to choose where they want to live and get services.
A win-win. People with disabilities get the choice to live in the community and states get the needed resources to rebalance their long term service systems to increase the availability of community based services.
MFP helps states comply with the ADA and the Olmstead decision. The Supreme Court said in Olmstead that needless institutionalization was discrimination under the Amer equivalent institution (compares nursing home costs to their waivers, and ICF-MR costs to their waivers.)
MFP has many benefits:
Cost in community is 2/3 on average cost of nursing homes or other equivalent institution (compares nursing home costs to their waivers, and ICF-MR costs to their waivers.)
No backfill or woodwork. Because nursing homes are an entitlement they have no waiting lists. ICFs-MR can close the beds when people leave.
Doesn't bump people on existing waiting lists because uses funds paying for person in the nursing home or other institution, not waiver funds.