For the elderly, state budget cuts could mean no more daily hot meals and exercise classes to help prevent falls. At worst, some could even lose their beds at the nursing home.
These and other lifelines for seniors may disappear as governors and lawmakers slash spending to close an estimated $112 billion in budget shortfalls, advocates say.
Many state officials say they don’t want to reduce senior services, but they have little choice due to massive deficits. But it’s not all bad news. The funding for one senior program in Georgia was restored after legislators agreed the service was too important to cut.
Shuttering nursing homes
Among the most dramatic of the proposed cuts is the severe reduction in Medicaid reimbursement rates to nursing homes in Texas. Facing a shortfall of up to $27 billion, state lawmakers want to reduce the rate by 10%. But payments to nursing homes would plummet by a total of 34% because they would also lose federal matching funds.
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This could result in the shuttering of 850 of the state’s 1,000 nursing homes, forcing up to 45,000 elderly residents to find other accommodations, said David Thomason, chair of the Texas Senior Advocacy Coalition.
Tami Luhby, cnn
