[mtnmom]

http://www.cbs46.com/Global/story.asp?S=5473158
(CBS 46 News) -- A CBS 46 Investigation has discovered approximately 2,000 disabled children that have been kicked off Georgia's Medicaid program in just the last 18 months.

[caroladybelle]

Unfortunately it affects not just Georgia's kids.

GA strictly limits the issuance of CONs for skilled nursing homes and requires extra paperwork for sending patients to a NH. They claim to have enough nursing home beds, but many of these beds are located in the boonies or in highly undesirable facilities. Thus you have to "prove" that the patient needs the bed, and they have few choices of where they can be placed, leading to patients living 50-100 miles from their families. Frequently, unisured nonelderly stroke patients end up stuck in the hospital for monthes, until one can "prove" that the hospital bill will qualify them as indigent and qualify them for medicaid. That and as there are fewer NHs, they can pick and choose their clients, and a medicaid patient requiring heavy care is at the end of the queue. Or as the family can decline long distance placement, the hospital is stuck with a bill that keeps growing for a heavy care patient, and that will never be paid.

The other issue is that GA has been requiring extra paper and extra time to process payments...with facilities getting paid 9-18 monthes later. This has been hurting hospitals/MDs for about the last 2-3 years.

[Peachgirl]

You have got to b kiddin' me!!! This is the first I heard of it! I cant help but think of all of the epileptics in Georgia. They can't hepl it and shoudn't b punished for such a thing. They already have enough trouble having to struggle in school and being made fun of? Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse for eps like myself when I was in school.

[mercyteapot]

I wish this situation was restricted to Georgia. The fact is there's been a push on, ever since a certain someone became President, to cut Medicaid costs. If these same cuts were tried with Medicare, there'd be a huge uproar because of the political clout senior citizens carry, but unfortunately, it is easier to deny care to children with disabilities. I know that things are pretty bad in Tennessee as well. Here in CA, there have been cuts, but it sounds like not as extreme as what you're talking about in GA. Something that has been done here, which is totally unfair, is that for 3 years in a row, the state kept the federal COLA that is given to SSI recipients. A group with which I'm involved through work has a legislative day in Sacramento every year. I was explaining this to one of the legislative aides and he said, ''Really? But that's not fair''.... Yes, dear, that's what I'm telling you! Why were SSI recipients singled out as the ONLY people in the state expected to surrender an approved ''raise'' to help balance the budget? Ahnie had a hare-brained scheme to cut the wages of In Home Support Services personnel from $10 to $7 an hour, too. If you had any idea how difficult it is to find people who will do it for $10, you'd understand what a cut to $7 would mean- many people simply wouldn't be able to find help, which was probably the idea behind the proposal. Luckily, that one died.