Contact: Ernie Blazar 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Friday, March 22, 2002

WASHINGTON, DC - Senator Kit Bond announced that the Senate Budget Committee passed his amendment to the budget resolution to help ensure that sufficient funds are available for home health care.

“The last thing home health care providers need is more cuts. My amendment will allow home health care providers to do their jobs,” said Bond.

No other group of Medicare patients and providers has suffered as much as those in home health. As a result of the cuts in the Balanced Budget Act (BBA), almost 3,500 of the nation’s 10,000 home health agencies have gone out of business or stopped serving Medicare patients. Roughly 900,000 Medicare beneficiaries have been eliminated from the home ealth benefit since 1997, while the numbers and age of Medicare beneficiaries has steadily increased. And according to a recent report, there are 26,000 fewer patients receiving home care in Missouri. This is a drop of almost 30-percent. The biggest cuts are yet to come – scheduled for October 1, 2002.

Bond, who has been a long-time champion of home health care, insists that these cuts would send the current home care crisis spinning out of control.

Bond and Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) amendment recommends that dollars within the $500 billion health reserve fund are used to protect home health. This ensures that funds are available in the Senate Budget Resolution to eliminate the 15-percent cut in home health benefits and a continuation of the 10-percent rural add on.

Bond has led the national fight to protect home health because he believes home health care is a vital part of Medicare, allowing seniors to receive basic nursing and therapy care in their home. Not only is it convenient and cost-effective, home care is also very fulfilling for the patients. There is a virtually universal desire among senior and those with disabilities to remain independent and withing the comfort of their own homes, despite their health problems. Home health care makes this possible.

“We have a crisis in home health care -- too many seniors who could and should be receiving home care are not getting it, this is tragic” said Bond. “The Bond-Feingold amendment will allow more of our seniors to remain at home.”