Wrong way to `save'
OUR OPINION: KEEP MEDICAID BENEFITS FOR 77,000 VULNERABLE FLORIDIANS

The Legislature is taking the wrong approach to cutting Medicaid costs. Consider, for example, the proposed cut in Medicaid coverage for 77,000 poor, elderly and disabled people, many of whom live in South Florida communities.

The rationale for the cuts is that these Floridians will be covered by new Medicare prescription-drug benefits beginning in 2006. Indeed, they will be. Under proposals in the state House and Senate, however, they also would lose a host of other vital health-related services that Medicare won't cover. The result, once again, will be higher costs for the local communities that ultimately pay for the needs of the frail and indigent.

The targeted Medicaid beneficiaries are in the so-called Medicaid Meds-AD program. Most are elderly or disabled Floridians who worked enough to get some Social Security income, but who still live on less than $702 a month. If they are cut from Medicaid, they lose coverage for hearing aids, eyeglasses, dentures, chiropractic treatment, home-health services and other benefits.

The federal government is requiring states such as Florida to switch prescription-drug coverage for these beneficiaries to Medicare from Medicaid -- but doesn't say that these folks should have their other Medicaid benefits cut. Florida would be making an expensive mistake to do so.

A disabled or elderly recipient may now live with relatives. But without the help of home-health services, for example, the family may be forced to place the relative in a nursing home. The recipient would have coverage for nursing-home care but not for home-health service, which costs less. A diabetic who loses coverage for nutritional supplements may more easily end up hospitalized, again at greater expense.

The $17 million that Florida may ''save'' by cutting services for vulnerable Med-Ads beneficiaries will also cost Florida more than $20 million in lost federal Medicaid matching funds. The human and economic calculus demands that legislators not cut 77,000 Meds-AD recipients from all Medicaid benefits.