Have you read anything about this? It is from the STL Post Dispatch..
MISSOURI'S MEDICAID SHAME: Feeding tubes optional
08/31/2005
FEEDING TUBES AND nutritional formula aren't optional for thousands of Missourians with severe brain damage or disabilities. Without them, people can't eat.
But beginning tomorrow, Missouri Medicaid no longer will pay for them. Nor will it pay for breathing machines for people with respiratory failure; for canes, crutches and walkers; for cushions to prevent life-threatening bed sores; or for wheelchair batteries.
These things are technically known as "optional" equipment and services under current Medicaid rules. Gov. Matt Blunt and Republican lawmakers cut them during the past legislative session, denying equipment to about 340,000 adults covered by Medicaid.
But the governor's office insists things aren't as bad as they sound. The cuts "will not impact access to life-sustaining nutrition," Jessica Robinson, the governor's spokeswoman, told Virginia Young of the Post-Dispatch. "Gov. Blunt upholds the values that reinforce the right to life."
Mr. Blunt's office says that people who need feeding tubes still can apply for "exceptions." There are just a couple of catches.
For one, the vast majority of Medicaid patients have no clue about "exceptions". That's because there was no mention of them in the letters the state began sending Medicaid patients in May informing them about the cuts. For another thing, patients can't file exceptions on their own; they have to get letters from their doctors asking for an exception.
Patients who are losing feeding tubes and other equipment have been told they can file appeals. But the results to date are less than encouraging. As of last Wednesday, 1,048 people had filed appealed. Of the 427 appeals hearings held, the patient lost in 396 of them.
Peggy Bishop of Theodosia, Mo. appealed the loss of her Medicaid coverage. Mrs. Bishop depends on a battery of medical equipment, including a nebulizer that shoots medicine directly into her lungs.
Mrs. Bishop submitted a half-dozen letters from doctors attesting to her need for care. The letters were "irrelevant," an administrative hearing officer decided.
Jan Everett, whose 21-year-old son, Joey, depends on a feeding tube to get nutritional formula, said her request for an exception was denied. An appeal still is pending. The feeding tube is the only way that Joey can eat. He can't swallow because of a traumatic brain injury he suffered in an auto accident four years ago.
The Missouri Medicaid Reform Commission - co-chaired by Sen. Charles W. Shields, R-St. Joseph, and state Rep. Jodi Stefanick, R-Ballwin - is scheduled to start two days of hearings in St. Louis today. Ms. Stefanick, an architect of the Medicaid cuts, recently was named the governor's senior health care advisor.
At past meetings, Ms. Stefanick has given a cold reception to citizens who wanted to testify about the impact of this year's cuts. She has asked, instead, that testimony focus on ways of making Medicaid cheaper and more efficient.
By making coverage for feeding tubes and breathing machines optional, Missouri lawmakers are doing swell on the cost-cutting side. The trick now is to square that with "values that reinforce the right to life."
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