Is there no hope for curbing out-of-control Medicaid spending in Virginia without short-changing the poorest and most helpless members of our society? An experiment in Colorado with Consumer-Directed Attendant Support suggests that it is possible to save money and improve the quality of care for the severely disabled.
As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed page, the program allows patients to bypass the usual provider agencies and hire their own health aides. Half of any monthly savings goes into a personal account for approved purchases to advance the disabled person’s independence (such as voice-activated phones). In the first two years of the pilot program, average monthly spending was 21 percent under budget, while instances of abandonment, in which care givers failed to show up as scheduled, dropped to almost zero. As a pyschological benefit, Colorado Medicaid recipients felt more in control of their own health.
South Carolina, Flordia, Vermont and Arkansas are all looking at similar reforms. There was no word in the article about Virginia.
