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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

RCPA, along with 285 disability service providers and associations representing disability service providers, signed onto a letter from ANCOR thanking Senator Casey for his advocacy on behalf of individuals with disabilities in the past year.

The letter states, “Thank you for your steadfast leadership in supporting the Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) program, which enables individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) to live full and independent lives in their communities.

Thank you for being a sponsor and champion of the Better Care Better Jobs Act, which would strengthen the HCBS program and address a decades-long direct care workforce crisis that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and for shining a light on the importance of home-based services through a hearing in the Senate Aging Committee this past March.

We especially appreciate your relentless efforts to include the Better Care Better Jobs Act as part of the budget reconciliation bill. Although an investment in HCBS was not ultimately included in the Inflation Reduction Act, we know that time and again you pressed Senate leadership and your fellow colleagues to support people with I/DD through inclusion of HCBS funding.”

The full letter can be accessed here.

RCPA has signed onto a letter to Congressional leaders of the Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Committee on Finance, along with 244 other signatories, outlining the need for parity in addiction and mental health care under Medicare.

As the President’s 2023 Budget and Senate Finance Committee’s bipartisan report has highlighted, Medicare is not subject to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Parity Act). As a result, Medicare beneficiaries do not have coverage of or access to the full range of mental health and substance use disorder benefits they need, and often lose access to treatment they were receiving prior to becoming eligible for Medicare. Although Congress has eliminated disparate financial requirements for Medicare beneficiaries, Medicare still imposes both quantitative (e.g. 190-day lifetime limitation on psychiatric hospital care) and non-quantitative treatment limitations that would violate the Parity Act. Applying the Parity Act to Medicare Parts A, B, C, and D is the critical next step to make mental health and substance use disorder services available and accessible to the millions of Medicare beneficiaries in need of treatment.

Read the full letter here.

RCPA, with several other health and human services stakeholders, has signed in support of a series of letters written by the Alliance for Low-Income Personal Care Home Advancement (ALPHA) requesting legislators’ support of Governor Wolf’s $50 million increase to state supplemental security income. This increase would work to protect low-income residents in personal care homes from losing their places of residence. You can view one of the letters sent here. Letters were addressed to leaders of both parties in both the PA House and Senate.

Governor Tom Wolf recently responded to provider concerns over the language in the pending HealthChoices contracts as it relates to work force stoppages. The State added this language to limit service interruptions based upon an agency’s previous work stoppages. Providers raised the issue that inclusion of these provisions serves as a subsidiary policy goal of mandating health care unionization

Members can view the full response from Governor Wolf here.