By BJ Austin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-959422.mp3
Dallas, TX – Texas nursing homes may not get hit as hard as expected by state Medicaid cuts. A Senate committee has approved adding an additional 4.5 Billion dollars to the health and human services budget. But it's not a done deal. KERA's BJ Austin reports.
Republican Senator Jane Nelson of Flower Mound, says the additional money avoids double-digit cuts in Medicaid payments to nursing homes, doctors and hospitals. The new reductions are more modest; 1% for doctors, 3% for hospitals and 2% for nursing homes. Operators said a proposed 30% cut in Medicaid payments would force hundreds of nursing homes across the state to close. Senator Nelson says the additional funding would protect the most essential programs.
Nelson: We've worked very hard to restore all funding to mental health services. We've added 505 CPS direct care workers. That's 150 over current staffing levels.
The recommended budget does NOT fund HIV medication for some 14 thousand low-income patients. That program fell into unfunded priorities. That was unacceptable to Senator John Whitmire, Democrat from Houston.
Whitmire: You cannot have the cuts that we've learned more about this morning, the HIV medication, the brain injury, I could go on and on when we're sitting here with billions in the Rainy Day Fund.
Republican Senator Robert Deull, a doctor from Greenville, says Texans will see painful cuts, even with the additional funding.
Deull: These cuts that we're making are hard. They're not right. But they're absolutely, at this point, necessary. We're not making these cuts from a philosophical desire to cut government or to cut health and human services.
Senator Deull says lawmakers are obliged by the state constitution to balance the budget and that means cuts.
The full Senate Finance committee must approve the plan.