Latest California Healthline Stories
Tying Up the Last Loose End of the Budget
The state Department of Health Care Services has completed its first set of evaluations in the ongoing process to eliminate the adult day health care program in California, according to a state official. Now it will begin the effort to move the 35,000 ADHC participants to other state programs.
Meanwhile, the central topic of conversation among some legislators this week will be the governor’s veto of a budget provision that tied appropriated funding to a new version of the ADHC program.
The negotiation for some kind of new ADHC program “is not over,” Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said. “That is yet to be determined.”
Money for Nothing, as Program Put Off
Here’s a riddle for you: When is $85 million not $85 million?
The answer lies in the budget’s passage at the end of last week, when the governor approved the long-sought $85 million for adult day health care — but didn’t approve the program that went with it.
Couple that news with Friday’s federal approval of a Sept. 1 end date for the state’s adult day health care program, and you have a grim outlook for ADHC advocates, who had hoped for a smooth transition to the Legislature-approved replacement for the ADHC program.
What’s on the Horizon for Adult Day Health Care?
It’s been eliminated, but part of it might not be eliminated. It’s a cost-saver, but it’s being cut to save costs. It’s a vital service to thousands of Californians, but apparently not vital enough. What happened to adult day health care centers? And what might keep them alive?
Decision Due on Fate of Adult Day Health Care
The state of California wants to eliminate its current adult day health care network by Sept. 1, and given the 60-day period required for implementation of that, federal approval for axing the program is expected to come this week — specifically, by midnight on Thursday.
For ADHC advocates, that gives new meaning to the phrase “drop-dead deadline.”
“If the governor’s budget assumptions are followed,” Lydia Missaelides of Adult Day Health Services said of the end-of-June deadline, “that’s the next big event.”
Budget Backs Off More Health Care Cuts
From a health care point of view, yesterday’s passage of the budget was notable for what was missing from it:
- Transition was delayed for moving 870,000 kids from Healthy Families into a Medi-Cal managed care program;
- Elimination of the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board also is on hold for now;
- In a plan that includes an additional $10 billion in budget corrections, there were no new cuts to health-related programs.
Switching Programs a Complicated Task
Norman Williams would like to start with a basic premise: Adult day health care is important to the state of California.
Williams is a deputy director at the state Department of Health Care Services. “We consider this a valuable program, a real benefit for the people who use it,” Williams said.
That’s why Gov. Jerry Brown (D) allocated $25 million in transition money, Williams said, to assess the individual needs of people currently in the program and see where else they could be placed.
ADHC Lawsuit Might Proceed, Regardless
The official acronym change is from ADHC to KAFI — from the Adult Day Health Care program to Keeping Adults Free from Institutions.
The name change became official Friday with passage in the Senate of AB 96 (Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills). The bill would order the California Department of Health Care Services to file a federal waiver application for the new KAFI program “as soon as possible,” with an outside deadline of Sept. 1, 2011 — the same day the existing ADHC program is slated for elimination of its Medi-Cal benefit.
If the Assembly passes the budget as expected when it meets today, the package heads to Gov. Brown for his signature. Whether he signs it or not, senior and disability advocates plan to pursue the lawsuit filed last week against the planned elimination of Medi-Cal dollars from the current ADHC program.
Lawsuit Filed as Two More ADHC Centers Close
It will not be a good day today at the Robertson Adult Day Health Care Center in Sacramento.
“It’s our last day. It’s the day we’re locking our doors,” said Lyndsey Roush, program director at Robertson.
Robertson will be the sixth ADHC center to shut down since March, and a seventh center is expected to follow suit, with an announcement coming as soon as today.
Committees Talk Health, Move Budget
In passing the May revision out of the Assembly and Senate budget committees, a raft of legislators raised questions about the funding of health care programs, both present and future.
“This has been an arduous process, I must say,” Assembly member Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said. “We have had to make some tough decisions — with almost half of the March actions, half of those March cuts coming out of health and human services. These are services that Californians rely on.”
The current budget revision includes more cuts to health-related programs, including the shift of 870,000 children from the Healthy Families program to Medi-Cal managed care.
Adult Day Health Care on Track?
Adult day health care is like the Polly Purebred of the California budget process — always in calamity, always one sinister flick of the mustache away from disaster.
Well, for the moment anyway, it looks like ADHC actually might be untied and lifted off the budget train tracks.
“We’re going to focus all our attention now on the governor,” Lydia Missaelides of the California Association of Adult Day Services said. “So he understands what’s at stake here.”