Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Local Newscast
Hear the latest from the WRKF/WWNO Newsroom.

Hope Dwindling for Disabilities Help

In what’s become a sad tradition, the folks in yellow shirts came to the capitol again Saturday. It was their last chance this session to beg for more funding for the help they need caring for disabled family members at home.

The litany of their waiting and hoping for help was heartbreaking.

“Kiera has already been on the waiting list for waiver services for 6 years now.”

“Marcus has been on the waiting list since 2001.”

“If we have to continue to wait for waiver services, Riley may not be here to receive them.”

“Our children are disabled. Waiver slots need to be filled and the wait list needs to stop.”

Sandee Winchell, executive director of the Developmental Disabilities Council, told the Senate Finance Committee they did well last year—funding a thousand NOW waiver slots and adding authorization for 200 more.

“This gave hope to the 13-thousand people on the waiting list. For some, they would finally receive services after waiting over 10 years. For others, their wait would be shortened,” Winchell said. But then she added, “That hope was lost when more than half of these slots were frozen in the mid-year budget cuts.”

The House restored those frozen waiver slots in the upcoming budget, but only by eliminating nearly $26-million for the Office of Public Health. It’s highly uncertain whether the Senate will allow those changes to stand.

Houma Senator Norby Chabert, whose nephew has a form of muscular dystrophy, urged his fellow committee members to be compassionate.

“Services matter, and they do help,” Chabert said, softly. “And every slot could be an extension of life.”

With just 11 days left in the session, the Senate has the unenviable task of figuring out how to come up with nearly $200-million in additional revenue to make Louisiana’s health care needs “whole” –something the House didn’t cover in their version of the budget. Any revenue-raising measures must be offset by tax credits of some sort, in order to keep the entire budget within Governor Jindal’s ‘guardrails” of revenue neutrality and avoid a veto.

Even Senate Finance chair Jack Donahue seemed discouraged, while he told the disabilities advocates lawmakers are still trying to figure out the best way forward.

“I know you all understand the budget problems, and so forth, because you hear it every year,” Donahue said with a sigh. “But, you know, we’re going to do everything we can to help you all, and we’re going to try to make your life a little easier by what we do.”

Donahue expects his committee to take up the revenue raising bills Tuesday, then work any changes they might make into the budget bill Wednesday.