Advocates call for public vetting of MassHealth reforms
Flickr/Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Gov. Charlie Baker has proposed changes to MassHealth, which advocates want to see publicly debated.
Advocates for people with disabilities are urging lawmakers to reject MassHealth reforms proposed by Gov. Charlie Baker, arguing such changes are better handled publicly than through a conference committee negotiating in secret.
The group Disability Advocates Advancing Our Healthcare Rights has been visiting the State House lobbying against Baker's plan, which it says could have unintended consequences for elders and people with disabilities.
The group opposes what it describes as requests for MassHealth to have "sweeping authority to eliminate" optional benefits like personal care attendant services and to align benefit packages more closely with those of commercial insurance plans.
Baker on June 20 offered the six lawmakers negotiating the state budget a $315 million package of new revenues and savings initiatives to address rising costs in the more than $16 billion MassHealth program. The conferees are still working out a budget for the fiscal year that began Saturday and will decide how to handle MassHealth spending.
Lenny Somervell of the Disability Policy Consortium said if officials do wish to recommend MassHealth changes, they should do so through the regulatory process -- allowing for a public hearing -- or legislatively so that ideas are subject to vetting by all lawmakers.
"Not even the entire Legislature is involved," Somervell said. "It's just been put before the conference committee at the end of the gate. Not even stakeholders are aware this is happening."
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments