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Advocates urge lawmakers to fully fund home- and community-based waivers to avert wait lists and institutional care
Summary
Family members, providers and advocates told the Human Services Subcommittee that shortfalls in Kansas’ home- and community-based waivers could create wait lists that push medically fragile children and frail elders into hospitals or nursing homes. Witnesses pressed for targeted increases, including a 10% boost to IDD services and funding to prevent a projected $31 million shortfall in the frail-elderly waiver.
Witnesses at the Human Services Subcommittee hearing pressed lawmakers to prevent wait lists across multiple Medicaid waivers and to shore up funding for services that keep Kansans at home.
Parents, guardians and providers described how waiver services — including the technology-assisted (TA), brain injury (BI), frail-elderly (FE) and intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) waivers — make it possible for children and adults with complex medical and supportive needs to live safely in the community. Dr. Ryan Jolly of Little Lobbyists framed the stakes bluntly: “That third option is that we as a state decide that we're okay to let sick kids die,” he said, urging the committee to fund KDADS enhancement requests that would avoid TA waiver wait lists.
Family testimony underscored personal consequences. Jane Fergus, whose son receives TA-waiver services, said the waiver…
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