Don’t Bankrupt the Disabled

The fact remains, there are certain people groups who frankly need assistance from the government.  As much as I hate to admit it sometimes from the political standpoint, without government assistance and intervention for certain folks, like those with developmental disabilities, they just wouldn’t receive the care and training they need.

However, just as we as a nation are seeing government systems like Medicare and Social Security not working as well as they once did, it’s happening at the state level, too.  When those government programs were established, people weren’t living as long.  They weren’t retiring as early.  The thought was that each program would have plenty of money in it, because the workforce contributing to them would always be larger than those receiving the government funds. 

The Medicaid waiver system in the state of Florida is guilty of this same mindset.  When it was established to pay for services for the developmentally disabled ranging from transportation to housing to job coaching and everything in between, people with special needs weren’t living as long either.   A few decades ago, it was common to see people come off of the waiting list for services regularly as one of their counterparts passed away.

As medicine has advanced, nutrition and exercise increased and life-saving treatments have become more prevalent legislators at both the local and state levels haven’t had the foresight to understand that the monies, funded in the current way, were simply going to eventually run out. 

Just like the federal government is searching for solutions to the government programs already established, I strongly encourage the state of Florida legislators to do the same.  The monies in the Medicaid waiver system, if they really were distributed the way they should be, to all people with developmental disabilities, would be bankrupt.  It’s time to go back to the drawing board and come up with solutions to help instead of cut.  These special people need government intervention, whether I like it or not.