By Mike Weland

Gini Woodward addresses those gathered at the Bonners Ferry Visitors Center for a recent Saturday morning rally in support of continued state funding for Medicaid. It was one of hundreds of such rallies that took place state-wide.

Faced with an estimated budget shortfall of over $137-million for fiscal year 2012, state legislators are considering cutting $50-million in state funding for Medicaid. Because the federal government adds $70 for each $30 in state funds, that means a cut of over 166-million, which could eliminate all developmental disabilities services for adults with developmental disabilities, eliminate all psycho-social rehabilitation services for adults with mental illness, and all but eliminate home and community based services for people with developmental disabilities and mental illness.

Home and community based services have been subject to state budget shortfalls for years, with programs cut and payments to caregivers delayed, but the brunt of the burden on those who can least afford it.

At Saturday’s rally, Lisa Robbe, of Partnerships For Inclusion, encouraged the crowd, including Bonners Ferry city councilman Tom Mayo and county commissioner Walt Dinning, to contact our legislators and encourage them to keep Medicaid funding alive.

Carrying signs saying “Medicaid Matters” and “I’d Rather Live in My Community Than an Institution,” the crowd listened as Gini Woodward, representing NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Far North, spoke of being the mom of two bright and engaging Bonners Ferry High School students 25-years ago, only to see one of them debilitated by mental illness.

“Today I am the mom of one ‘normal’ child and of an adult child disabled by chronic mental illness, who is not able to live in the community or be near her family support system due, in part, to the lack of adult mental health support,” she said. “It is unrealistic to meet the needs of all citizens at all times. However, I believe we, as a community, have a moral and ethical obligation to our people who are unable to care for or speak for themselves.”

She read some staggering statistics. Of approximately 1.5-million Idaho residents, close to 54,000 adults and 18,000 children live with serious mental illness, the leading cause of disability in the nation. Idaho’s current mental health system provides service to only about 16-percent of them. In 2008, about 1,700 adults with mental illnesses were incarcerated in Idaho, today, about one in every four homeless people struggle with mental illness.

“Adult mental health workers are the support system for our people with mental illness,” she said. “This is the support system that attempts to keep our disabled citizens off the streets, out of hospitals and safe. This is the support system that guides our disabled citizens towards recovery. The adult mental health system ultimately saves money, and I believe more importantly, lives.”

She went on to encourage those in attendance to become educated about mental illness, to recognize that it’s not a character flaw or bad behavior, and to talk to our legislators.

“Medicaid matters to me,” said Mary Hubbell. “Medicaid matters to my son, Jordan.”

Introducing her son, she told those assembled that he suffers from Lennox Gastaut Syndrome, which causes intractable seizures, mental retardation and aggressive behaviors.

“His life has been a continuous struggle to overcome these continuous battles,” she said. “My life has been one centered around helping him find his way, supporting him in any way that I can. I love him and when I look at him I don’t see the disabilities, I see my son, who loves his 25-pound cat Feisty, loves his brother and sister, dad and grandfather, loves to drive riding lawnmowers and go carts and skidders. I remember a time before the seizures began, when he got around just like all the other kids, and could join in all the activities.”

She spoke of Jordan’s ever-deepening slide, watching him slip beyond her capacity to provide for him.

“It was at that time I realized he needed professional help,” she said.

Thanks to that support, she said, she was able to keep Jordan in his home community until last year, when his struggles became so great she had to make the awful choice to seek a group home able to provide the care he needed. The closest place she could find, she said, was in Boise.

“He is sad and calls me often, wanting to come home to his community,” she said.  “It breaks my heart when I hear him say, ‘got my shoes on, you pick me up?”

Without Medicaid, she said, providing him the support he needs would be impossible

“I just learned that Jordan likes to operate the paper shredder,” she said. “He now shreds so much paper, they stopped paying him by the pound and now pay him by the hour! For the first time in his life, Jordan has found a way to contribute to society. We must find ways to keep families together and to support the needs of those with disabilities It is how we treat each other that will define us as a race, and whether or not God will look upon us with favor.”

Colleen Bolles, who lives alone in Bonners Ferry with her 18-year-old son, Jeremiah, who suffers from autism and Down Syndrome, read a letter she’d written to Senator Shawn Keough in an attempt to show how Medicaid matters to her.

“I have endeavored to learn as much as I can about his disabilities and I know him well as an individual,” she wrote. “I feel strongly that he should remain with his family and in his own community. The current Medicaid services are making this possible.”

She wrote of being unable to work outside the home because of the demands of caring for her son, and how essential the $53.39 per day she receives from Medicaid to provide for him is in enabling her to keeping Jeremiah home.

“Please do not consider extreme cuts to Medicaid for people in our financial and care giving situations,” she pled. “The effect would be to devastate Jeremiah’s world and I would most likely be forced to institutionalize him if certified family homes and developmental therapy is cut out.”

Despite her plea, she said the response from Keough was far from optimistic.