Budget panel won't expand Medicaid program

CARSON CITY - A budget subcommittee voted Tuesday against expanding Nevada's Medicaid program to help severely disabled Nevadans - angering a spokesman for the disabled.

But the subcommittee chairman, Sen. Ray Rawson, said he's not giving up and may try for the expansion even though the Medicaid budget has been closed.

Paul Gowins of the Disability Forum said he was caught off guard by the subcommittee's decision to add $1.4 million to help up to 60 disabled people with a lower level of services.

Gowins said the forum's goal was to use the new money in combination with expanded services. The idea was to help keep a lower number of severely disabled people in their homes or homelike settings and out of costly institutions.

The funding and the expanded level of services would limit the assistance to about 25 severely disabled people. Rawson said that wouldn't have handled all those in need of such services - but could have helped more than two dozen people in institutions or on the verge of being sent to such facilities.

The plan to help the lower number with expanded services required a Medicaid waiver, and Rawson said, "I'm not willing to give up on that waiver."

"If we have to, we'll come back later - but I don't want to wait for another two years," added Rawson. "I'm going to continue with some efforts now."

Gowins said the subcommittee vote, on a motion by Assemblyman Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, was tough to take.

"This is very difficult for the disabled community," he said. "We have worked for four years on that waiver - and we were basically thrown a bone."

"We thought there was support on the subcommittee," he said. "But we just couldn't get anyone on the committee to make a motion" (for the Medicaid waiver).

"I don't want to say they did nothing," Gowins said. "But the disability community would have liked to see the Medicaid waiver."

What the subcommittee has endorsed, Gowins added, is a level of service that will help those whose disabilities aren't as severe as some people who are quadriplegics or on ventilators.

What was hoped for was a chance to demonstrate that the waiver program, while providing additional services at a higher cost to the state, would still save a lot of money in the long run by getting more people out of institutional settings, he said.

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