Maine meeting duty to seniors

Last weekend’s Bangor Daily News featured an Op-Ed column by Philip A. Cyr concerning the funding of long-term care (BDN, March 24-25). Mr. Cyr expressed his view that the King administration has not lived up to its obligations to our older Maine residents. It was an irony to read Mr. Cyr’s column, since the very day before I received a glossy-print fund-raising brochure from Maine’s largest private not-for-profit children’s service agency (which receives nearly $30 million from the state annually), in which the writer of that piece argued that Maine state government, {and the King administration} was spending a disproportionate share of its money on senior citizens and not enough on children. When measured by the concepts of “full financial disclosure,” both the BDN Op-Ed column and the private fund-raising letter left much to be desired and are quite misleading.

Here are the facts:

. Maine state government reimburses nursing homes at the sixth highest rate of reimbursement among all 50 states according to a nationally recognized report.

. Nursing home rates were increased by an average of 6 percent just last year.

. Maine spent a total of $309 million last year to fund long term care services for our senior and disabled citizens, most of which went to nursing homes.

. The total number of people receiving long term care services has increased from 19,803 in 1995 to 26,767 last year.

. The number of Maine people receiving state funded home care has nearly doubled since 1995. 13,944 people received services last year, compared with 7,684 in 1995 and 3,512 in 1994.

. Maine more than doubled spending for the Low Cost Drugs for the Elderly and Disabled Program from $7.5 million in 1999 to $17.5 million last year. The number of people eligible for the program also increased from 21,000 to 41,000.

. The number of elderly Maine people receiving state subsidized congregate housing services has increased from 175 in 1996 to 400 last year.

. Long term care needs assessments, provided free to any older or disabled adult who may need services to remain independent, were provided to more than 35,000 people in the last three years to advise them on their long term care options.

When people associated with the for-profit nursing home industry suggest the State is “underfunding by many millions” nursing and residential homes, they are ignoring all of this progress made in the last six years, and are basically saying, in a different way that, “we would like the state to pay for all costs, whether those costs are justified or not”.

It’s perfectly within the rights of any industry, be it a paper mill, a nursing home, a hospital, or a large children’s agency that wishes to obtain more state tax money from government to make their case for it.

However, that right doesn’t extend to being able to misrepresent the degree to which Maine spends many hundreds of millions of dollars on its older and disabled citizens.

Maine is a leader as a state by virtually every measure in caring for the elderly and disabled; in the amount of money we spend, in the creativity of how we spend it in supporting a wide array of residential and home-based care choices, and in the accountability that comes with this spending. I have no doubt that a number of service providers wish that Maine would be less vigorous in its pursuit of obtaining value for the tax dollars we spend.

This is true whether one is a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a nursing home operator or a private vendor of services to the state.

Fairness to all requires that, Maine, which ranks 36th in the US in per capita income, 6th in reimbursements to nursing homes and pays for the care of 68 percent of all residents of Maine nursing homes, shows measurable evidence that Maine state government and the King administration are sincerely and financially committed to our seniors.

Kevin Concannon is commissioner of the Maine Department of Human Services.