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Tennessee A D A P T
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 15, 2001

Tennessee Citizen Highlights the need for Medicaid Reform

Contact: Willie Robinson (901) 272-1618

(MEMPHIS, April 24) Willie Robinson is moving out of the state of Tennessee because he does not wish to live in a nursing home.  "I wish I didn't have to go so far for a little independence," said Mr. Robinson Willie has been working to change the system in Tennessee that funnels almost all the Medicaid long-term care funding to the nursing home industry. Senators Harkin (D-Iowa) and Specter (R-Pennsylvania) will introduce bipartisan legislation this session to reform Medicaid and give people with disabilities choices in long-term care. Willie will see the MEDICAID COMMUNITY ATTENDANT SERVICES and SUPPORTS ACT (MiCASSA) become law from his own home - his new home in Colorado.  "Because Tennessee has no attendant services, I have lost my job, my home, and my car," said Willie Robinson to Tennessee Senator Bill Frist at the Memphis Center for Independent Living. "I live in a nursing home now and I have no choice about what time I get up in the morning, what I have for meals and what time I go to bed at night." Colorado is no "Nirvana" for persons with disabilities; Colorado is simply one of the states that provide less expensive and more desirable forms of long-term care to save taxpayer money. Missouri, for example, with a larger total population than Tennessee, spends nearly $100 million less of state money on nursing facilities and over $200 million in federal funds [Medicaid Financial Management Report FY 2000].  The Tennessee Comptroller's Office reported in 1997 "because home and community based services can be less costly than nursing home care, the state could reduce Medicaid expenditures for institutional care if these services were used as an alternative to nursing home care [Long-Term Care of Tennessee's Elderly 10/97]." Two limited waivers will take effect in Tennessee this year; yet our state remains fiftieth of U.S. states in providing options to institutions. Mr. Robinson with Sen. Frist at the Memphis Center for Independent Living The new state waiver programs that offer expanded home and community options are still too limited to meet the needs of most nursing home residents. Services are available only five days a week and often have a medical bias rather than assistance to live at home. The new state programs however, may be effective in preventing or delaying an individual's entrance into a nursing home. The nursing home lobby has been involved in the guidance of the new programs for home and community based living and made sure that they did not cut into the nursing home industry's profits. Federal Medicaid funds are for the long-term care of Tennesseans; however, the powerful nursing home lobby makes sure that institutions dominate the long-term care in our state. Mr. Robinson's flight to Denver (Northwest 801) leaves at 9 a.m. Willie is upset about leaving his friends and family here in Tennessee for Denver Colorado but says that the people close to him "have been supportive."

ADAPT of Texas: (512) 442-0252
adapt@adapt.org

The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org 

MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency

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