FL League of Women Voters to Legislators: "What Were You Thinking?"
(Posted July 11, 2011 06:35 am)
By Les Coleman
TALLAHASSEE, FL - The Florida League of Women Voters is slamming the state Legislature for refusing to spend $2 million to help the elderly stay out of nursing homes. By failing to fork over the funds, Florida's legislative leadership in effect returned $35 million in federal matching funds to Washington.
League president Deirdre Macnab asks what the
legislature was thinking.
"This is really an unfortunate, quite a disgraceful
decision, I think, by the state, particularly when we
are sending people into nursing homes. The state has
just cut funding by almost 10 percent to nursing homes."
In recent months, Florida has forfeited $54 million in
grants because the funds were related to the federal
Affordable Healthcare Act. Florida and 25 other states
are challenging the Act's "individual mandate" in court,
while other states are accepting the funds.
Macnab admits these are difficult economic times in
Florida, but she says the state needs less partisanship
and more policy based on economic sense.
"Because of our state's refusal to participate in any
way in the federal health care plan, and in particular
this program, we are going to be spending our own state
money at almost twice as much, $80,000 a year, to put
these people in nursing homes."
Studies show that if seniors are forced into nursing
homes because of a lack of community support, many could
end up requiring even more state dollars for care, when
they deplete their savings and become Medicaid-eligible.