Disability Thrive Initiative

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books requiring health insurers to cover autism treatments. But new research evaluating the so-called “insurance mandates” suggests these efforts are failing in key ways to help people — especially children — get needed therapy. Read more.

California, in a departure from previous policy, will not automatically enroll low-income elderly and disabled residents in managed care health plans during the next round of a three-year pilot project, state officials announced Thursday.

The state made the change in response to widespread concern that people were being enrolled in plans without their knowledge and without a clear understanding of what managed care meant for them. Future enrollment will be voluntary, officials said. Read more.

Republican legislative leaders want Gov. Jerry Brown to include $200 million in additional money for low-income dental services in the revised budget proposal he releases next week, saying the increase would help improve a program criticized as a “vicious circle of dysfunction” in a recent report. Read more.

Last month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that includes about $300 million in funding to provide health care services for the developmentally disabled. The state must now decide where exactly to spend this money — and officials should ensure that some of it goes to providing much-needed dental care for developmentally disabled children. The bill in question, a collection of tax incentives, was originally put together to “avoid the impending loss of $1 billion in federal funding” for a rapidly growing Medi-Cal caseload, according to Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. While this action did, indeed, help all Californians by allocating $1.3 billion dollars for health care, the state must now decide where to allocate this money. Read more.

Due to agreement between the Legislature and the Governor last year, full-scope Medi-Cal benefits will become available for undocumented children (under age 19) beginning in May. These services will be provided through Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans and will enable undocumented children who enroll to access preventative care and other services that are not currently available through emergency Medi-Cal.

Additional information regarding this change can be found in this article from California Healthline (English and Spanish) and on the page on the DHCS website related to this topic.

While in Washington DC, ADAPT is working to secure Senate cosponsors of the Disability Integration Act (S.2427) and secure introduction of a House version.  This historic civil rights legislation requires states and insurance providers that pay for Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS) to provide community-based services first and offer HCBS to people currently in institutions.

The proposed legislation says “No public entity or LTSS insurance provider shall deny an individual with an LTSS disability who is eligible for institutional placement… community-based long-term services and supports that enable the individual to live in the community and lead an independent life.” Read more.

For decades, severely developmentally disabled people entrusted to public care were housed in large state-run institutions. Now, that era is coming to an end. In less than six years, most residents of the three remaining institutions are likely to be transferred to group homes and other smaller community settings

The planned transfers have some families worried that their relatives won’t get the supervision they need. Others say community homes offer a sense of freedom they have not had before. Read more.