The following letter was sent to each member of the Berkshire Delegation on May 27, 2004. It is a comparison of the Senate and House budgets which was prepared by Mass Home Care. At the bottom of this report you will find an icon for the PDF version. If you print out the PDF you should use legal sized paper.
Dear Representatives Bosley, Kelly, Pignatelli and Larkin, and Senator Nuciforo:
May 27, 2004
Dear Representative/Senator:
I have sent, by e-mail, for your information, a Conference Committee "side by side" comparison, prepared by Mass Home Care, of items of importance to Elder Services during the final deliberations on the FY 2005 budget.
I'd like to focus your attention on two items in that e-mail attachment:
1. Expanded Community Waiver: We have drafted "blended" language that combines text from the outside section 79 in the House, and 279 in the Senate, in order to expand the community based waiver. This important initiative would raise the income and asset levels to allow more elders to get into the waiver, stay out of nursing homes, and claim federal matching money to pay for their care plans.
2. Protective Services: We are asking the Senate to adopt the House version of item 9110-1636, which provides $10.5 million for the protective services program. We desperately need more funding in this line item; without this additional funding, more cases will go uncovered, and more seniors will go without services.
We know deliberation time will be short, so we ask you to forward the attached charts attached to the e-mail to Chairman Rogers and Speaker Finneran as soon as possible, and to ask your support for these two line items for your elder constituents.
We are sending this letter both by e-mail and by regular mail. The important charts are with the PDF version only, and require legal sized paper when you print them out.
If you have any questions about this material, please don't hesitate to call.
Thank you for your continuing support for the Prescription Advantage Plan, the Councils on Aging, Choices, and the State Home Care Programs, including the enhanced program.
Sincerely,
Robert P. Dean
Executive Director
Read the formatted version (click to open - Adobe Acrobat Reader Required)
(Free Download!!