HHS Spending Billions of Dollars to Move Medicaid Recipients Out of Institutions...Wants to kick seniors out of Nursing Homes

HHS Spending Billions of Dollars to Move Medicaid Recipients Out of Institutions...Wants to kick seniors out of Nursing Homes Scotty Starnes | February 23, 2011 at 11:30 PM | Tags: Dr. Donald Berwick, Medicaid, MFP, Money Follows the Person, Obamacare | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4wz

Sounds like the one running the Medicaid service it trying to save money by kicking poor seniors out of nursing homes.

(CNSNews.com) - The Health and Human Services Department plans to spend $4.3 billion authorized by the Democrats' health care law to move Medicaid beneficiaries out of institutions and into their own homes or "community settings."

"Our country recognized in the Americans with Disabilities Act that everyone who can live at home or in a community-based setting should be allowed to do so," Secretary Sebelius said. "The Affordable Care Act provides states critical new dollars toward achieving that goal."

Thirteen states will receive a total of $45 million to start their own "Money Follows the Person" program, which has been extended for another five years under the health care law.

Money Follows the Person (MFP) provides individuals living in nursing homes or other institutions with the services and support they need to live in their own home or a group home. Medicaid recipients benefiting from the MFP program include the elderly, people with intellectual, developmental and/or physical disabilities or mental illness.

HHS says MFP programs so far have helped 12,000 individuals move out of institutions and back into their communities. The grants announced on Tuesday -- $45 million for starters, and a total of $621 million through 2016 -- are expected to help an additional 13,000 people.

$4.3 billion to move 25,000 out of nursing homes?

"The Money Follows the Person program is hugely important to improving the lives of Medicaid beneficiaries," said Donald Berwick, M.D., administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which will oversee the MFP program. "This helps bring everyone, even those who in the past may have had no choice but to live in an institution, into the community where they can become full participants in the activities most of us take for granted."

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