Getting it Straight, with the State
The story of Celia’s* failing health is not for the faint of heart. By the time she turned fifty she was blind and afflicted with numerous other major health problems, everything from osteoporosis, to arthritis, to hypertension and anxiety disorder. She was on nearly 20 prescription medications. Despite being bound to a wheelchair, Celia’s life is still enjoyable and she remains bright, engaged, and well-organized.
For years she has qualified for and taken advantage of COPES, which is a program, managed by the state Department of Social and Health Services, that pays for personal care and other services for people in their own homes. The program’s main purpose is to help people who, without it, would require placement in nursing homes.
Celia came to the Center for Justice in 2003 when the state notified her that it would no longer fully fund the home care hours she was receiving from a full-time caregiver. After three years of case work and on the eve of a hearing to contest the state’s announced decision, the Center for Justice reached a settlement negotiated with a state assistant attorney general that restored, at a minimum, the 240 hours per month that the state had been funding to provide for her care. The 2006 agreement and its conditions were very clear. On its face, it offered a final answer to the problem.
But it didn’t. In 2010, Celia was again notified that her home care hours would be cut due to the state’s budget cuts. She once again had to come to the Center to seek recourse. A Center for Justice volunteer reviewed the case. When the senior volunteer, a former top DSHS official, called his former agency, a state worker explained to him that because the Governor’s budget cuts were the “law” of the state, the reduction in hours is what the “law” required. This was a startling interpretation and, in a larger sense, raised many larger questions about how many other state service receivers were being arbitrarily cut or denied services.
In the case at hand, however, it also raised the very specific question of how the state agency could effectively override an explicit agreement it has signed in Celia’s case. The CFJ volunteer kept investigating and learned that the Assistant Attorney General involved in the 2006 settlement was still with the state. Our volunteer called the Assistant AG who, in short order, not only disclosed that he remembered the case but warmly asked how Celia was doing. When told of the state’s new decision to cut her ours, the AAG quickly concluded that the irrevocable agreement from 2006 was still intact and that unless certain specified conditions in the agreement applied (none did) the state was barred from reducing her care hours.
The threatened cutback in care hours was then swiftly revoked, and Celia’s care hours and her access to the full-time care giver continue in place.
*Not her real name.
For years she has qualified for and taken advantage of COPES, which is a program, managed by the state Department of Social and Health Services, that pays for personal care and other services for people in their own homes. The program’s main purpose is to help people who, without it, would require placement in nursing homes.
Celia came to the Center for Justice in 2003 when the state notified her that it would no longer fully fund the home care hours she was receiving from a full-time caregiver. After three years of case work and on the eve of a hearing to contest the state’s announced decision, the Center for Justice reached a settlement negotiated with a state assistant attorney general that restored, at a minimum, the 240 hours per month that the state had been funding to provide for her care. The 2006 agreement and its conditions were very clear. On its face, it offered a final answer to the problem.
But it didn’t. In 2010, Celia was again notified that her home care hours would be cut due to the state’s budget cuts. She once again had to come to the Center to seek recourse. A Center for Justice volunteer reviewed the case. When the senior volunteer, a former top DSHS official, called his former agency, a state worker explained to him that because the Governor’s budget cuts were the “law” of the state, the reduction in hours is what the “law” required. This was a startling interpretation and, in a larger sense, raised many larger questions about how many other state service receivers were being arbitrarily cut or denied services.
In the case at hand, however, it also raised the very specific question of how the state agency could effectively override an explicit agreement it has signed in Celia’s case. The CFJ volunteer kept investigating and learned that the Assistant Attorney General involved in the 2006 settlement was still with the state. Our volunteer called the Assistant AG who, in short order, not only disclosed that he remembered the case but warmly asked how Celia was doing. When told of the state’s new decision to cut her ours, the AAG quickly concluded that the irrevocable agreement from 2006 was still intact and that unless certain specified conditions in the agreement applied (none did) the state was barred from reducing her care hours.
The threatened cutback in care hours was then swiftly revoked, and Celia’s care hours and her access to the full-time care giver continue in place.
*Not her real name.
