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Elderly Home Care falling to 1981 levels
As lawmakers on Beacon Hill close in on final numbers for the fiscal year 2003 budget that began July 1, home care for senior citizens continues to slide downwards due to budget cuts - heading to a monthly statewide caseload level below 1981 levels. Locally, these cuts will impact services through Elder Services of Berkshire County.
The Swift Administration, using numbers based on the Governor's revised budget, has told home care officials to target a total of 34,245 elders served for the month of July, and drop 175 each month until reaching a low of 32,322 elders by June, 2003. That's a drop of more than 1,900 seniors in just one year's time. If this scenario holds, home care services in Massachusetts would fall more than 2,700 seniors over the course of 24 months - one of the largest drops in the history of the program.
The level of service in the home care program by June of 2003 (32,322 elders) will be lower than the level of home care provided 21 years ago (35,931 per month). From FY 83 to FY 89, home care caseloads were consistently over 40,000 elders per month, reaching a high in FY 87 of 44,919 cases per month.
In the aftermath of the recession of the late 1980s, the home care program fell for the next five years (1990-95) and began to regain ground for the next five years (1996 to 2000).
In the Berkshires, Elder Services hit a five year high of 1,072 elders receiving home care services in January, but every month since then, under a state imposed "managed intake" system, has had to decrease the numbers served. As FY 02 ended (6/30/02), Berkshire’s number served totaled 1023.
Projections from the state, before new information about decreasing state revenues was released, indicated that Elder Services' case load will be reduced by 50 more through June ’03. If further cuts in funding for home care happen before the budget is signed, Elder Services’ numbers and the resources to serve elders will again be lowered.
In June, lawmakers agreed to a "community choices" initiative in the Medicaid budget that would increase community services to elders "at imminent risk" of nursing home care - giving such elders home care services at roughly 50% of the cost of going into a nursing home. That plan, which was included in the Senate and House versions of the budget, is pending the outcome of Conference Committee deliberations.