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Dayton
Daily News...
Kasich outlines
budget’s impact on seniors
By Katie Wedell, Staff Writer
VANDALIA — Proposed changes in the way nursing homes and home health
care solutions are funded will save the state money while increasing
choices and quality of care for Ohio’s seniors, Gov. John Kasich said
Monday.
Kasich, along with Director of the Ohio Department of Aging Bonnie
Kantor-Burman, visited the Vandalia Senior Center to outline the
changes in the governor’s proposed budget that affect senior care.
“We want everyone who has a health issue to have the most independence
with the best care at the lowest cost,” Kasich said.
The governor stressed that the plan is about creating efficiencies, not
making cuts. He said the default has previously been to send recovering
seniors from the hospital to a nursing home, even though home care is
less expensive for the taxpayer and most people would prefer to be in
their homes.
Doug McGarry, executive director for the Dayton region of the Ohio Area
Agencies on Aging said many in the industry are happy with the concept
of what the governor has proposed, but perplexed by some of the
specific funding cuts.
Kantor-Burman said the governor’s plan will expand the Passport
program, Ohio’s largest home and community-based program for long-term
care, by at least 4,000 members in the next two years, with no waiting
list.
But while the program will expand, the funding will be cut. The plan
calls for cutting monthly per member funding for Passport by $33.4
million in 2012 and $65.4 million in 2013, according to a study by the
Cleveland-based Center for Community Solutions.
McGarry said this amounts to reducing services for the people who are
already saving taxpayers an average of $40,000 a year per person by
choosing home care over nursing home care.
“If you take too many services from home care, at what point does the
caregiver give up and put Mom or Dad in a nursing home,” he said.
Other opponents, including one skeptical audience member, have
questioned how the governor’s budget can possibly erase the state’s
deficit without increasing taxes.
“Raising taxes is not an option. If you drive up the cost of doing
business, people will leave,” Kasich said. “I think we have enough
efficiencies in the budget to be able to cover (additional members).”
Kasich said money for the Passport expansion will come from combining
the state’s budget for nursing homes and home care so that money can be
shifted more efficiently as patients’ needs change.
“This is not an attack on the nursing home industry,” he said, but
added, “if there are fewer people in nursing homes then we can shift
that money.”
Audience member Gene A. Geaslen, executive director of Grace Brethren
Village retirement community in Englewood, raised concern about
diminished quality of care due to cuts. He said he will soon be forced
to cut benefits for his staff.
Kantor-Burman said a new funding formula for nursing homes will
designate a greater percentage of money for quality measures. She also
the state is working toward a unified, statewide training program to
ensure quality home health care workers have more opportunities for
advancement and recognition.
Read it at Dayton Daily News
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