The focus of your article in the Daily Camera, Dec 5, was good. Yes, fewer people should be in nursing homes. Most of them aren’t fit for a dog.

But your article did not, unfortunately, say much about the capitation in long-term services that is going on under the covers. For instance:

1) HB10-1146, by Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, abolishes the Home Care Allowance for DD people who have Medicaid waivers. Unfortunately the parents of these adult disabled either depended on the HCA to stay home to take care of their adult children, or were using it for a few extra hours care so they could keep working The HCBS-SLS waivers have been reduced recently and don’t meet the real needs of most, in spite of the fact that parents who take care of their adult children at home save the State lots of $$.

2) The State has NO dedication to the CDASS (Consumer Directed Attendant Support Services) program which ought to be the future. It allows people to get the home-health agencies, many of which are incompetent, out of their lives so they can hire their own employees. The State put CDASS in initially on the HCBS-EBD wavier, but is now refusing to extend it to other waivers, and is even restricting the number of people who can get it under EBD.

If you decide to write a followup article on this subject, I hope you will consult Julie Reiskin at the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition. Juiie is very knowledgeable about these problems and others in both the adult-injured and developmental disability communities.