Tens of thousands of Louisiana residents could face eviction from nursing and group homes
More than 30,000 Medicaid recipients, including those in nursing homes and group homes in Louisiana could lose their benefits and face eviction due to proposed state cuts.
Louisiana Department of Health Deputy Secretary Michelle Alletto said the agency will notify about 37,000 Medicaid recipients, whose eligibility to receive the benefit could end on July 1, they may have to move out of the facilities because of the lack of state funding.
The letters, which will be mailed out on Thursday, will also go to Medicaid patients with developmental disabilities and some who receive home-based services to give recipients time to develop appropriate plans, the agency said. The state health department also will evaluate any eligibility options, according to the agency.
State officials plan to address the issue at a news conference on Wednesday.
The proposed cuts could force nursing homes to close, leaving more than 25,000 people unemployed, according to the Louisiana Nursing Home Association.
At least one nursing home has started notifying people about the possible loss of benefits.
"Worried over calls from Broadway Elder Living Center advising that #Medicaid support for my 90 y/o father (a Korean War vet) and my 86 y/o mother may get cut off," David Grabert wrote on social media on Tuesday.
"Mom called me crying over this unconscionable threat to losing nursing home care desperately needed," Grabert wrote.
Grabert couldn't be reached late Tuesday.
Medicaid is a health insurance program for certain low-income individuals and their families that is jointly run by the federal government and individual states. People 65 years of age or older who meet the income and asset limits for their state are eligible for Medicaid.
Last month, the Louisiana House of Representatives approved a state budget that would cut four Medicaid programs for the disabled and elderly, The Times-Picayune reported . The House version of the state budget included $538 million in state healthcare cuts, the paper said, citing documents from the health department.
The proposed budget eliminated the Medicaid Long Term Care Special Income Level Program, which enabled those with incomes of greater than $750 a month and less than $2,250 a month to receive Medicaid, according to Jim Tucker, CEO of CommCare Corp., a nonprofit that operates 12 nursing homes.
That program provides health services for about 80% of nursing facility residents, according to the Louisiana Nursing Home Association.
Tucker, a former House Speaker in Louisiana, said the new proposed guidelines would cap income eligibility at $750 a month or less.
"Our patients are old, they are frail. They have multiple health issues," he said. "And the stress of coming to realize that they are going to lose their funding that allows them to stay in a nursing home, and have no other known option, I believe could kill people."
"It is the worst treatment for Louisiana 's greatest generation that you could possibly fathom coming out of Baton Rouge," Tucker said.
The Senate hasn't voted on the budget yet, The Times-Picayune reported.
The budget shortfall is largely a result of the elimination of state taxes, which are set to expire on June 30, The Times-Picayune said .
Once residents are deemed ineligible for the benefits, "they will have to be discharged from their nursing facility overnight, leaving their families to scramble to find other housing options and the vital healthcare services that they require to continue to live," said Mark Berger, director of the Louisiana Nursing Home Association
Changes to the Medicaid system, however, will not happen overnight.
The state would have to get approval from federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services , and nursing homes residents can appeal the state's request, Tucker said. If the state's request is approved, the state would have create plan to relocate Medicaid recipients.
Some nursing homes are hoping for the best.
"We've been knowing about this, but now it's real and it's not about the letter, it's about the faces of real people who we've been serving for years and years," Sister Ann Lacour of Chateau De Notre Dame, a New Orleans faith-based retirement community, told CNN affiliate WVUE.
She added: "Hopefully we won't have to work with it because our Legislature will find a solution to answer this."
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Sad.
Everyone loves tax cuts until they understand the impact.
Perhaps this is a just reward for a lifetime of voting, first dixiecrat, and then Republican.
Dixiecrat is a portmanteau of Dixie-southern combined with 'crat- Democrat. Those Dixiecrats were southern democrats. Nobody ever said that they were not Democrats.
They were racists who split from the more progressive Democratic party beginning in the late 1940s when the military was desegregated and ending with the approval of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. They formed the Dixiecrat party that failed and then they were encouraged to join the GOP first by Nixon and then by Reagan's counting of the Christian evangelicals as the south swung from being solidly blue to now being solidly red in the early 1990s.
The facts disagree with you. Those racist Dixiecrats did not support the platform of the larger more progressive national Democratic party after they failed to prevent Truman's election.
I highly doubt anyone is going to through the elderly out into the streets.
what do you base that on? The article you linked claims otherwise.
I love how this discussion turned into one about taxes and if you don't like it vote. Look at this article, it's fucking ridiculous to put thousands of people out of jobs and patients without a way to make up the difference.
What do you think is going to happen to middle class famillies that have parents in nursing homes and children in school? Does it matter to the economy? Yes, yes it does very much matter.
What an idiotic response. It's quite real for many people, but no one was hysterical.
Unfortunately, our society does not value those who change, feed, assist our old folk's meaning the pay is really low despite the high demand for such services. The conditions are tough and the job is dirty so there is a lot of turnover and the, well, quality of yhr caregivers willing to do such difficult work for low pay are not always the best educated most qualified and capable individuals. Maybe, if caregivers were paid a living wage, but they are not...
A nursing home in my town had a flood a few years ago, and the residents had to be evacuated. That nursing home's employees refused to work overtime to aid the evacuation, so another nursing home's employees headed that way and helped out. During the course of the evacuation, multiple code violations were discovered, and the nursing home shut down for several months - to clean up from the flood, they said, but the part about fixing the violations was hush-hush. Apparently, there were posts on Facebook that were deleted pretty quickly.
And while I think the workers who refused to help were wrong, there is more to that story, too. Their working conditions were lousy. As little as they were getting paid, their paychecks would frequently bounce. For those who had benefits through their job, their premiums that were being withheld from their paycheck were not being passed on to their health insurance companies, so they would sometimes find out that they had no active insurance, even though they were paying for it. They knew they wouldn't be getting overtime pay, and would probably be catching hell for the condition of the nursing home if they did stay and help. So I have trouble blaming them entirely.
No one is not going to get the assistance they need. Your hysteria and hyperbole over the situation is what is idiotic.
It sounds like very poor management. It always falls on management when conditions at a nursing home are deplorable. Management is responsible for making sure patients are taken care of. That means paying their workers and disciplining workers who don't do their jobs.
How do you know? Do you have a crystal ball?
well yes actually I do...do you want lotto numbers?
you'll just give me the wrong ones
suit yourself
Hey! I don't trust you! So what?
often low cost is main choice in picking a nursing home
Point out exactly what was hysterical or hyperbolic.
Great! Prove it.
That's a lack of inspections at the state...that doesn't have anything to do with the reason these hospitals will close.
From my experience. When on Medicaid in a nursing facility they not only look at your income, but savings, own your home, etc. If you should have any assets, then, they are theirs. If not, your SS benefits go to the home and you are given $10 a month personal allowance. It is not the best arrangement, but it works for those who have no other place to go. Medicare will pay for three weeks after hospitalization and, then, its Medicaid or some other place.
IMO, families are not doing a good job of taking care of their elderly family. Funny, how we always managed to take care of our children.
Mags, some elderly folks can't be cared for at home. Perhaps their illness is too severe and requires an actual trained nurse. Perhaps they are too heavy for one person to lift. Perhaps they are violent due to dementia.
A friend of mine, his mother has alzheimer's. She has wandered down the street, thinks things are happening that are not then bursts into tears, wants to visit her mother that has been dead for quite some time, etc. One time she actually managed to get the neighbors keys and took off in their car.
It is terrible to watch. I don't think I could handle it.
Some people need around the clock care, with work and families of their own, sometimes it is just not possible.
A neighbor of my business used to wander a lot. One time, she wandered several blocks away to near the police station in her nightgown during the winter when the temps were in the teens. And several times my coworkers and I coaxed her off of the street and back to her house when she was confused, living in the past, and walking around in traffic. She had no family here. While I think the family she had did poorly by her, I'm not sure they could have cared for her at home, either, due to the wandering.
Often, those with dementia have relatives, even children, who are pretty up there in years, themselves. A 90-year-old may have children in their late 60s or 70s, and those children may already be incapable of the heavy lifting required to provide nursing care. Their grandchildren are likely to still be working, and unable to provide care due to job commitments. Our increasing (mostly) life spans have their drawbacks, and the need for end-of-life care is one of them.
And Trump voters are just starting to get the bitter aftertaste of the swamp juice that is Trump and his administration.
It's only just beginning. The Wall Street goons Trump appointed that were instrumental in the economic collapse we saw after Bush are back in charge only now they are involved in both our government and the private sector with no oversight to stop the damage because they are making it impossible for regular Americans to speak out or do anything about it.
The tax cuts were a scam, a total sham, and will hurt millions of Americans including our veterans. How many disabled veterans will suffer with all the cuts that are happening now and the Trump swamp is just getting started.
I said it when he was elected, that the GOP would go whole hog crazy with an agenda to benefit the rich and do more damage to destroy the middle class and poor. They are doing it.
I also knew that any Trump voters would blindly pledge to their golden idol Trump no matter what happens.
These harsh austerity measures hurt more than help and I knew it would take at least a year for the cracks to show up, and it will not even dawn on any Trump voter until it hits their wallets hard later this year and next. It will get worse and worse economically every single day for the 98% of Americans who are not part of the political elites running the GOP and Trump along with his millionaire, billionaire buddies.
"We've been knowing about this, but now it's real"
How long have they known, and what have they been doing about it ?
Answer to the last part of the question would be....... NOTHING !
But they do fake "Shock" really well.
I always find procrastinators to be a LAZY bunch !
MAGA. Louisiana is Trump country under the heel of the GOP/KLAN crowd. Worship the fetus. The hell with the old, especially the poor and destitute old.
Deleted, Skirting {SP}
Meh, so a few old geezers get thrown out on the street to die, they're gonna die soon anyway! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, GO TRUMP!!