The Medicaid expansion bill, Senate Bill 26, passed both houses. CCDI supports the Medicaid expansion provisions of SB 26, but we strongly oppose the provisions of the amended bill that allow large antiquated institutions called Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMDs) to expand the services they provide in order to allow them to refill beds emptied as a result of compliance with the federal consent decree in Williams v. Quinn. We urge the Governor to amendatorily veto SB 26 by removing the provisions of the Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Act of 2013—the portion of the bill that authorizes the IMD expansion. The IMD amendment was buried in a 600 page amendment filed just hours before it was heard in committee. The goal of the amendment was to refill IMD beds vacated as a result of the Williams v. Quinn consent decree and to enable IMD owners to profit by expanding authorized IMD functions, including ones in which these owners have no expertise, with little oversight. This forced disability advocates and legislators to choose between supporting Medicaid expansion—thereby supporting expansion of the IMDs—or opposing expansion of the IMDs and likewise opposing the State’s expansion of Medicaid. To so callously disregard and put at risk the needs and interests of people with disabilities in order to satisfy the special interests of the IMDs is unconscionable and should not be allowed to stand. IMDs are large outdated institutions where people with mental illness have been warehoused. Contrary to the goals of rebalancing, IMDs do not promote the independence and recovery of people with mental illness. In spite of this history, SB 26 authorizes IMDs to provide services in which they have no expertise, in locations that do not reflect overall need and to do so in the same institutional settings that have failed people with mental illness in the past. The State should focus on increasing the quality and availability of community mental health services in the settings and locations where they will be most effective. Allowing IMDs to expand may undermine the State’s compliance with the Williams consent decree and may subject the State to new litigation under Olmstead. Services provided in IMDs are not reimbursable under the Medicaid program, which means that these privately-owned institutions are completely state-funded. It is unknown whether the expanded services the IMDs propose to offer will affect their ineligibility to receive federal matching funds. There is no question that the State is eligible to receive federal Medicaid reimbursement for mental health services provided in the community. There is also no question that services provided in the community are far more effective in treating people with mental illness. The State should take advantage of known avenues for receiving federal match funds, not gamble on an unknown and, given Illinois’ recent experience with seeking federal approval of changes to our Medicaid program, the unlikely possibility that the new IMD-provided services will be approved for a federal match. Take a moment now to ask Governor Quinn to remove these harmful provisions, the Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Act of 2013, from SB 26. Doing so will keep Medicaid expansion intact while eliminating the provisions of SB 26 that are contrary to rebalancing and are driven by the desire to keep IMDs profitable, not the needs of people with mental illness. capwiz/ccdionline/issues/alert/?alertid=62702056 Thanks to our friends at Equip for Equality for sharing their information and insights.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:00:01 +0000
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