Hello everyone, sorry we’re late with this edition of the newsletter but now that the legislative session has started it’s a very B-U-S-Y time for CDRC.  We will be discussing legislation among other important issues in this CDRC newsletter for March.

 

Legislation – The Medicaid Advisory Committee (MAC) bill now has a number.  This bill number is HB 1330 in the House of Delegates, and SB 771 in the Senate. Delegate Hubbard is the sponsor for this piece of legislation in the House. Senators Hafer and Kelley are co-sponsoring in the Senate. The bill is entitled, Maryland Medicaid Advisory Committee - Membership, Staffing, and Reimbursement. This bill is CDRC’s legislative project for the 2006 session in Annapolis.  As we stated in last months newsletter, this piece of legislation would call for at least 5 members of the Maryland Medicaid Advisory Committee to be people who are on Medicaid. The bill will require the MAC to have more consumers, with different types of needs, and fewer professionals so that people who have Medicaid get more of a say as to what happens with the Medicaid program. It also asks that some money be made available to help with transportation, child care, and other expenses that might keep someone from being able to participate. The House of Delegates heard this bill on February 23rd.  At this hearing, the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DHMH) opposed the bill. They opposed the bill because they don’t want to set a precedent for paying consumers for doing work on advisory committees, among other issues. The Senate heard the bill on March 1st. in this hearing DHMH supported the bill with amendments. We have not heard what the amendments are as of yet.  We think this is a step forward in getting this bill passed.

 

SB 447 / HB 843  - This bill would create an annual inflationary increase for DD and Mental Health providers. The title of the bill is Department of Health and Mental Hygiene - Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health Services – Cost of Living. This means that your staff will be more likely to continue working for service providers knowing that they will be earning better pay. Service Provider agencies will have an easier time hiring and keeping qualified staff once they are able to offer a cost of living adjustment to those employee wages. Agencies need this bill to help with all the items a provider must pay for – like housing costs, utility costs, fuel costs, food, etc. CDRC member Bill Ohge testified on the house side for this bill February 28th,  (and did a g-r-e-a-t job), Michael Taylor submitted written testimony on the Senate side. 

           

SB 10/HB 123 – Real Property - Condominiums - Conversion of Rental Facilities - Extended Leases.  This is a bill introduced by our friend Senator Grosfeld that deals with an issue that is becoming a big problem everywhere and has already affected CDRC members Phil & Liz Weintraub. The problem addressed by this bill is when an apartment building “goes condo”.   This bill would require some landlords who want to change to selling apartments instead of renting them (condominiums are apartments you own instead of renting) to give a person with a disability a 3 year lease extension to allow them more time to look for another place to live if they are unable to purchase the condominium. The bill also changes the term “handicapped citizen” to “person with a disability.” 

 

SB 717/HB 1339 – Maryland Medical Assistance Program - Long-Term Care - Community Choice Program - Participation, Location, and Termination.  Not long ago we learned that the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DHMH) wanted to try out the CommunityChoice program in Baltimore County and city and Prince Georges and Montgomery counties. CDRC and others felt that was too many people to try this new program on before all the problems were worked out and that the places chosen wouldn’t help the department see problems that might occur in small towns, like Hagerstown.  This bill will require the Department to try the program in a big and a small city and limit the number of people in the program until the test period is over. 

 

SB 715 / HB 1038 - Personal Care Providers - Registry and Training.

Requiring personal care providers to register with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and receive specified training before they may provide personal care.  CDRC opposes this bill because we believe that this bill would make the already difficult task of finding a caregiver even more difficult. By requiring training for nearly all types of care, this bill makes the offer of assistance from a family member or stay at home mom a difficult task.  Last year the legislature  passed HB1542 which created the Personal Assistance Service Advisory Committee (PASAC)  Their job is to analyze Maryland’s home care system and submit a report of recommendations to the governor’s office by October 1st of each year.  The committee has been divided into three subcommittees; Training, Registry and Wages/Benefits.  These subcommittees have not yet had the opportunity to make any recommendations.  CDRC feels passing this bill would counter the work the committee has been entrusted to do. Allow the committee of appointed experts a chance to carry out their assignment. 

 

DDA BUDGET - CDRC members testified on the DDA Budget. The House side got a bit heated when SRC supporters recommended opening institutions for admissions to Waiting List families. Waiting List families do NOT! want institutional care! They want COMMUNITY! services and supports. The senate hearing was a bit smoother. There was the usual family member that wanted to open SRC’s to Waiting List families but this time there wasn’t support of SRCs from the Committee Chair. 

 

DD Day at the Legislature – This important event at the legislature for the Developmental Disability community was a GREAT day.  There was a wonderful turnout for the event. The DD Coalition presented Governor Ehrlich with 2000 candy hearts representing the 2000 people on the Waiting List who will receive community services because of his 2007 budget.  They have 13000 more candy hearts representing those who are still on the waiting list, that they hope to present him in the years to come for his continued funding of the Waiting List. We will be happy when the remaining 13000 candy hearts are GONE.

 

Meetings – John and Kenny attended a meeting with Diane Dressler of DDA, along with 20 Service Coordinators on the implementation of Right To Be Informed (our bill from last year). Included in the meeting were representatives of the 4 State Residential Centers. We discussed ways to make RTBI work.  We gave some suggestions of how we thought RTBI could be put into effect and how RTBI could be beneficial to individuals. Here are a couple of ideas Tracy Wright helped us come up with, 1) collect 6-8 stories from across the state about people who changed services. These should include people with all kinds of disabilities, all ages and experiences. Stories should show good gradual transition to big changes, not merely dropping people into a new service, 2) create a pamphlet as a generic way to give information on different services options that doesn’t make anyone uncomfortable and could be put into the hands of all IP meeting attendees. These are just two of the suggestions we gave to DDA. The service coordinators will be splitting up into small groups to work on the suggestions that we gave them at the meeting.  CDRC has been asked to help put together trainings and materials. We’re certainly glad to help!

 

We also had a meeting with Secretary Kris Cox from the Department Of Disabilities. At this meeting were advocates that signed on to a letter letting the Department know how disappointed we were about the State Plan.  We were pleased that Secretary Cox wanted to meet with the advocates and listen to what we had to say about the State Plan.  We explained to her what we felt needed to be in the Plan. We had good dialogue with Kris. 

 

Website – We know Kenny has been slacking on his website duties.  He has hasn’t had too much time these days with the legislative session going on.  Kenny will update our website as soon as he is able.  He is sorry for the delay.

 

Our next CDRC meeting will be

 

March 26, 2006

1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Maryland City at Russett Library

3501 Russett Common

Laurel, MD 20724

 

CDRC may be changing locations for our membership meetings because we have outgrown the library room that we use now. Too many active advocates. YAHOO!!!!!!