Some people never seem to learn and Democratic Senator Doug Berger is looking like a case in point.
State Senator Berger, who back in his student days at Chapel Hill signed up for something called the ‘Democratic Socialists of America,’ is now head of the Senate Sub-Committee on Health Care. The other day, after he passed a bill in his committee to cut Medicaid Home Care 60%, a lady wrote criticizing him and Senator Berger just fired a shot back telling her he knew all about home care – because as a lawyer in the James Scott Farrin law firm he’d sued home care agencies.
There’s also a story going around the legislature that when another lady supporting home care disagreed with him, Senator Berger let her have it too, saying, You keep this up and I’ll cut it even more.
This is not what journalists would call objective ‘verification’ of that story but, in fact, last Thursday night when the House-Senate Budget Conference met Senator Berger tried his best to cut home care $77 million – or 85%.
The Committee haggled for a night and part of the next day, one legislator was overheard saying Berger proposed the cut to show the Home Care and Hospice Association – his most vocal critic – the legislature had the power to eliminate their entire program, then the Senators and Representatives went home for the weekend.
Politicians pursuing vendetta’s is seldom a pretty sight.
But, more to the point, what would Senator Berger’s vendetta cost taxpayers?
Thirty-six thousand patients receive Medicaid home care. By law to qualify each has to suffer from a minimum of two disabilities: Difficulties eating, walking, bathing, dressing, toileting or incontinence.
What happens to these patients if Senator Berger cuts their home care?
They have two choices: They can go into a Rest Home or a Nursing Home.
Now, do the math: In home patients provide the roof over their own heads, as well as their own food – and the government provides a nurse or nurse’s aide for 1-3 hours each day. If the same patient moves into a Rest or Nursing Home the government must provide their lodging, food, transportation and care 24 hours a day.
So caring for patients in Rest Homes and Nursing Homes, naturally, cost taxpayers a lot more money than home care – according to the State Department of Medical Assistance (SFY2007 Report) at least five times more.
So if Senator Berger sticks to his guns – and succeeds – his plan could cost taxpayers around $385 million a year.
It’s hard to imagine who, other than a former ‘Democratic Socialist,’ would conclude it makes any kind of sense to drive patients out of a cheaper program and into a more expensive one – but that seems to be Senator Berger’s logic.
The Democrats in the General Assembly, what with their voting to raise taxes and voting to build a deluxe $25 million fishing pier, have handed Republicans plenty of political gifts lately – but Senator Berger has achieved the ‘hat trick.’
Raising taxes is sure to make the Republicans in his district mad.
Cutting elderly patient’s home care is sure to make Democrats mad.
And costing taxpayers $385 million a year is sure to make Independents mad.
I guess about the only people in Senator Berger’s district who aren’t mad must be the nursing home operators – who’ve got to be shaking their heads unable to believe their good luck.