As a Medicare home health nurse (working for a locally owned and operated agency), I am deeply concerned about the devastating effects that portions of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 will have on our elderly population.
By passing this law, Congress has drastically cut the level of care that these Medicare beneficiaries will receive in the home. Using 1993 costs, we will be forced to calculate a per-beneficiary cap for use in 1998. This “cost-cap” restriction simply means that patients who meet the requirements for home health benefits will not receive the care they desperately need. In effect, Congress has elected to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly.
Our diabetic and wound-care patients who require more care will be forced into hospitals or nursing homes. For those elderly patients who have no caregivers and are on limited incomes but refuse to be institutionalized (and there are many), the outcome will be far more grim. Many will be forced to spend their final days alone and in pain with their last bit of dignity stripped away. As a nurse, I find this unconscionable.
Those who are forced into long-term care pose another question. How will the state even begin to manage financially the number of elderly who will have to give up everything they have worked for (home, retirement money and savings) to go on Medicaid? Are there enough Medicaid beds to accommodate them?
As is often the case, the government has not done its homework, and it is the elderly who will be required to pay for the imprudent legislation.
I strongly urge all citizens to write their congressmen and let them know how you feel.
