Gov. Chris Christie’s budget envisions savings in the state’s Medicaid bills, which he says will be instituted through an overhaul that will force the federal government to make changes in the program.
But the plan on table is not so much an overhaul but a rollback that will push more of the costs of the health program designed to help those who cannot afford health care onto the very people it is supposed to help. Christie says “he wants to move Medicaid recipients into managed care” and he is proposing a series of other changes, including cutting reimbursements to nursing homes and a “$3 co-pay at adult day care centers, which take care of more than 12,000 adult residents with mental and physical disabilities. The move is expected to save the state about $1.9 million.”
The savings are minimal in the scheme of the larger budget, but as advocates for the poor and disabled pointed out during a hearing yesterday, the co-pays and other changes “would deter many disabled residents and their families from using the adult day care centers. They said the already cash-strapped facilities would then see less money due to declining enrollment.”
Christie is right to want the federal government to step in and fix Medicaid — though I suspect he has little interest in a real fix (single-payer). In any case, this is not the way to go about balancing the state’s budget.
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Hank Kalet 
What's next, throwing the elderly out of nursing homes and into the nearest gutter? These are people who have exhausted all their savings and are on Medicaid, they need constant 24/7 care. These are people with extreme disabilities like Alzheimers and dementia, they can't take care of themselves and if they have any relatives left, they are incapable of giving the 24/7 care which they require. Nursing homes are very expensive, anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month and up. Only the rich can afford that on a permanent basis; those high monthly costs exhaust the lifetime savings of an average person in a year or less. Of course libertarians and right wingers don't care about these people, all they care about is the almighty me, me, me, me, me. They would say tough luck to these old people.Christie wants to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, elderly and working folks. God forbid that the corporations and the rich should actually pay their fair share in taxes. Cut taxes for the rich and throw a few more dementia patients into the gutter, who cares, certainly not libertarians.