LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan health care providers on Thursday urged lawmakers to come up with a solution to avoid Medicaid payment cuts scheduled to take effect June 1.

Home health care workers also rallied in Lansing, protesting suggested budget cuts that would trim their wages and hours.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm this week told hospitals and doctors that they will get 6 percent less for treating low-income or disabled patients unless lawmakers quickly approve a tax increase or come up with a different way to cover the costs. She blamed the possible cuts, similar to those planned for schools, on legislative inaction.

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The Michigan House announced their budget plan this week which would completely do away with the home care cuts passed by the Senate last month. This new budget reflects the well known fact that cutting home care is not a feasible solution to Michigan's economic crisis.

Lawmakers in the House recognized that home care saves the state millions in Medicaid dollars every year, by keeping people out of costly nursing homes, as shown in a recent study by the Anderson Economic Group.

Thats why we need to protect the Home Help program. Not only does it cost the state four times as much to fund nursing home care, but home care also allows people to retain their independence and dignity in the comfort of their own homes. 

With the prospect of hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers moving into our long-term care system, this is a time when we need to increase funding of programs like Home Help to ensure all Michiganders can have access to affordable, quality care when they need it.

Given Michigan winters, the move south 18 years ago made perfect sense
to Mary Payne.

Life in Florida meant warm weather, a new circle of friends and as much
golf as she and her husband, Ed, wanted.

"It was lovely. My husband and I played at least three times a week. I
developed all kinds of friends there."

Her husband died in 1992. In 2005, she went into kidney failure and was
put on dialysis. Her next move: A

U-turn back to West Michigan, where Payne, 82, lives at Heather Hills
Retirement Village in Kentwood and relies on the support of extended
family.

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Home care cuts could leave seniors without needed help

Georgia Richardson just wants to do some good.

But a state Senate bill passed last week aimed at eliminating some of Michigan's $942 million budget deficit may soon lower her wages, and her incentives, for doing so.

The Oak Park resident, who three days per week provides assistance as a home care worker to a Detroit senior citizen, said the Republican-backed proposal could break her personal budget - and her heart.

"Could I afford to keep doing this? Probably not," Richardson, 59, said in a quivering voice while seated next to Mildred Lewis, the 71-year-old woman for whom she works. "I came into this just wanting to help. I didn't expect to get this close to someone."

Patrick Anderson of Anderson Economic Group (AEG) said that the nearly $8 million in proposed cuts to Michigan’s Home Help program will actually end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars more by preventing seniors from staying in their own homes and instead pushing them into more costly nursing facilities.

“Underpaying home care workers is likely to worsen the structural budget deficit because it leads to the substitution of nursing home care that is more expensive for taxpayers. This is not a smart thing to do,” Anderson said of the Senate’s proposed home care cuts. “We should be putting more money into home care – not less.”

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