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Senate committee defers resolution on foster-family homes accepting IDD Medicaid waiver participants
Summary
SCR13 SR9, which would incentivize community care foster family homes (CCFFHs) to accept individuals eligible under the state’s Medicaid IDD waiver, was deferred after testimony identified federal and state regulatory barriers and questions about capacity on neighbor islands.
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services deferred SCR13 SR9, a resolution asking the Department of Human Services and Department of Health to establish incentives for community care foster family homes (CCFFHs) to accept people eligible under the state’s Medicaid intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) waiver, after testimony identified regulatory limits and capacity issues.
Mary Brogan of the Department of Health said the department "think[s] that there are regulatory barriers to enacting this at both the State level and the Federal level," and that very few people had moved between the 1915(c) waiver and the program referenced as "11/15" in the testimony. She explained a specific eligibility restriction: "to be eligible for the 1915 waiver, you can't also be eligible for the HCBS program within the 11/15. You can't get case management from both," a limitation she described as part of the regulatory constraints.
Testimony in support came from the Hawaii State Council on Developmental Disabilities and the Hawaii Disability Rights Center. At one point, a testifier described a local example in which a person with developmental disabilities was moved off-island after a DD home closed and no local adult foster-home capacity was available. That testimony emphasized neighbor-island capacity problems more than on Oahu.
Louis (recorded as "Lou Werteshek" in the transcript) of the Hawaii Disability Rights Center urged creativity in expanding home capacity and noted administrative backlogs for licensure. Jack Lewin, speaking from his national experience, said some federal-level waiver rules also pose obstacles. Committee leadership said they would defer the resolution to work through whether the barriers are administrative (state rules) or federal, and to explore options during the interim.
The committee did not record a roll-call vote on the deferral. The committee’s summary noted uncertainty about whether the problem is federal or state regulatory language and said the measure will be revisited in the interim.
