FAIRMONT — In February, the Gazette reported that more than 900 fragile West Virginia elders had qualified for in-home care, but were getting no help because the Manchin administration says there is no money left for that program.
Legislative leaders objected loudly. The administration had not told them any elders were waiting, they said. “We have always given them funding for that program, any time they ask for it,” House majority leader Brent Boggs, D-Braxton, said. “They just won’t ask.”
The entire House signed a petition in protest.
Now, the numbers have risen, and well over 1,000 qualified elders are limping by with no help. If legislators are serious, they will include funding in their budget for badly needed relief, whether the Manchin administration agrees or not.
It would save taxpayers a lot of money in the long run. An elder who qualifies for in-home care qualifies for nursing home care, too. A year’s care in a nursing home costs about $60,000 conservatively. In-home care costs about $20,000 a year.
The federal government pays at least three of every four dollars of the cost, so in-home care costs the state about $5,000 a year per person. Federal law requires the state to pay for nursing home care if a qualifying elder applies. That’s about $15,000 a year.
Boggs told the Gazette, “I’ve talked with people from different parts of the state who tell me seniors have started to go into nursing homes while they were waiting to be approved for in-home care services.”
This whole episode is distressing and puzzling. Gov. Joe Manchin often says he holds elders in high regard. Why, then, does his administration keep trying to shrink the very program that keeps them in their beloved homes and out of nursing homes?
Four years ago, the Manchin administration declared almost a thousand elders ineligible after they made the screening test ridiculously strict.
This year, they have been preventing elders from getting home care in the first place by refusing to tell the Legislature there is a huge waiting list.
Now everybody knows the list exists. At the same time, Medicaid has a surplus of about $360 million.
Incomprehensibly, Manchin did not request enough money for next year to cover the elders who are waiting. Surely, lawmakers will put it into the budget anyhow.
If they do, the ball will be back in Manchin’s court. If the elders get no in-home care, it will be because Manchin vetoed the funding.
Most of these elders went through the Depression and World War II. Shame on any state that won’t help them when they need it.
— The Charleston Gazette
This editorial does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Times West Virginian editorial board.
