Help for Florida Alzheimer’s Sufferers becomes Law
A bill proposed by Senator Mandy Dawson, Democratic Senator from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was signed into law this week by Governor Charlie Christ.
This is an essential bill that extends for two years the Medicaid Waiver Program for Alzheimer’s patients. The bill was co-sponsored by House Representative Hugh Gibson.
This is a continuation of a waiver that as passed in 1981 providing home care for Alzheimer’s patients that would otherwise have to be institutionalized. The waiver was scheduled to be reconsidered for legislative renewal in 2008, but the newly passed bill delays that reconsideration until 2010.
The bill also requests that there be a comparison between Medicaid home and community services that are available to these individuals’ waiver programs to determine cost effectiveness of allowing these Medicaid recipients to remain at home rather than be institutionalized.
The intent of this law is to see that Alzheimer’s patients and others with similar memory disorders and their families receive the types of assistance they want and need, that is best for themselves and their families, and have the choice to continue living at home, receiving supports and having the option to participate in their community to the extent possible.
It has been shown in a great many cases of Alzheimer’s and other memory conditions, that when individuals are able to remain at home with family, receive supports and have access to their community – which is usually a familiar place to them – they are able to do well longer and digress more slowly.
In this growing climate of strong suggestions to cut benefits as a short-term solution to a long-term issue, it is good to see that in some cases – including this one involving Alzheimer’s patients and their families, - taking the next two years to look at the situation closely and determine viable and acceptable solutions is the reasonable thing to do.
