California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) letter regarding ALWPP

August 2, 2004

Kim Belshé, Secretary
California Health and Human Services Agency
1600 9th Street, Room 460
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: Opposition to Proposed ALWPP

Dear Ms. Belshé,

California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) wishes to express our strong opposition to the Assisted living Waiver Pilot Program (ALWPP) that the Department of Health Services submitted to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in June, 2004.

For the past twenty years, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform has advocated on behalf of California's residents in long term care facilities, including the residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) that the waiver program would affect. Every day, family members and residents ask us what they are supposed to do when they no longer have enough money to stay in their RCFEs and they do not require care in a nursing facility, where they may have the option of converting to Medi-Cal when their funds are depleted.

Although CANHR wholeheartedly supports programs that allow residents to choose the least restrictive levels of care possible and not be thrust into nursing homes unnecessarily, we believe that the ALWPP in its current design would be more detrimental to those residents than helpful. Without even considering current licensing guidelines and local market conditions—let alone the arguments of the organizations that help residents find alternatives to nursing home care every day—the Department of Health Services has designed a program that would, at best, limit the choices of those residents that will receive benefits and provide a disincentive for providers to care for low-income residents.

The ALWPP in its current form would not realize the goals set forth by the State Olmstead Plan, nor would it provide the cost savings that California needs.

We are asking that you urge the Department of Health Services to reconsider the proposal and base a new proposal on input from those of us who provide assistance every day to the residents that are supposed to benefit from the waiver program.

Thank you for your support of the elderly and disabled who deserve better than what California is currently providing for them.

Sincerely,