For years, governors and lawmakers have talked about cutting funds to expensive nursing homes and putting more money into the state’s in-home care program called PASSPORT. While speaking to the group at a senior center in Vandalia, Governor John Kasich made it clear that was a priority for him too.
“We are here because frankly, we want to be in a position of where our seniors are as independent as we can possibly be," Kasich says. "Where we can, if we want to, stay in our homes, if we get older and we need treatment, instead of having to find our way in a nursing home, and if we have to be there that’s ok.”
While Kasich’s proposed budget cuts funding to nursing homes, it also cuts PASSPORT by 10% in the first year and 6% next year. Director of Aging Bonnie Kantor-Burman says the budget increases the number of seniors in the program by 4,800.
“That’s the number that we think will want those services," she says. "Our commitment to you is that of more people want those services, then more people will have those services.”
The governor and his supporters tried to explain to the audience how that would work – that savings would be wrung out of the systems through efficiencies that will result in lower costs, in many cases because seniors will be able to stay at home where they want, which will leave them happier and healthier. Kasich says he expects not just for everyone who wants to be in the PASSPORT program to be served, but for that service to better, not lesser quality.
“We can actually provide better care at a lower price, save the money – see, that’s the way to think about things," Kasich says. "And in our lives, what we have found is that companies that have been able to provide us a better product at a lower price, they’re the ones that win. And the ones that have fears about changing, they’re the ones that disappear.”
The governor took four questions before the session ended – the first was from the senior center’s vice president Jim Hudson, who admitted to Kasich that he is a skeptic.
“He went back to his basic premise is that he’s going to be able to save by efficiencies, save enough money to balance the budget, get that $8 billion savings," Hudson says. "I’m still skeptical he can do that.”
Most of the audience was supportive, though. Faye Jackson is a retired teacher in Vandalia.
“I know that we have to make all these changes," Jackson says, "because the state is absolutely not just broke but $8 billion in debt. But I think we all are going to have to sacrifice.”
Kasich said afterwards that he doesn’t think the budget with cuts to PASSPORT as the potential caseload is growing is too optimistic.
“That’s because we shift resources," he says. "If there’s fewer people going into a nursing home, then we can spend more money on people who want to stay at home.”
But a study from the progressive-leaning Center for Community Solutions says the math doesn’t work out, and that the cuts to PASSPORT won’t keep pace with the expanding numbers of people who will be joining the program. Cuts to nursing homes in previous budgets never were as deep in the final product as they were in the initial proposal. But Gov. Kasich says he’s confident that his plans will survive the budget process, and the expected onslaught of pressure from that industry in particular.