July
28, 2016
To
the Honorable Members of
The
Illinois House of Representatives,
99th
General Assembly:
Today I
veto House Bill 4351 from the 99th General Assembly, which would amend the
Illinois Act on Aging to restrict the State’s flexibility in how we assess and
serve Illinois’s elderly and physically disabled residents.
This
bill is very similar to House Bill 2482, passed by the General Assembly last
year, and which I returned with an amendatory veto for many of the same
concerns I raise today. Although well intentioned, this bill would lead to
serious unintended consequences.
First,
this bill would lock into statute that an individual with a particular
threshold score on the Determination of Need (DON) assessment tool would be eligible
for both institutional and home and community-based long term care
services. Instead, an individual with the threshold score should be entitled to
institutional or home and community-based care. Many members of the
General Assembly have long worked to transition the state from a reliance on
institutional-based care to a focus on community care options that improve
patient quality and cost efficiency. However, House Bill 4351 inhibits this
transformation in the way the State delivers services for the elderly and
disabled.
Second,
to the extent that a motivating factor behind this legislation is to preclude a
raise in the minimum DON score used to determine eligibility—as originally
contemplated under the SMART Act (Public Act 97-0689)—I have no intention of
raising the DON score. In light of this commitment, there can be no good reason
to unnecessarily restrict the State’s ability to move from institutional-based
care to community-based care through this legislation.
Finally,
this bill would inhibit the Illinois Department on Aging from creating a new
program, the Community Reinvestment Program (CRP). This program is designed to
provide a multitude of flexible services for non-Medicaid individuals currently
being served under the Community Care Program (CCP), and it furthers the
State’s commitment to serving individuals in their own home and community
rather than in nursing homes. CRP is also projected to produce savings of
nearly $200 million during the next fiscal year. By precluding the launch of
CRP, this bill would prevent the State from managing ever-rising costs and
jeopardize our ability to ensure that essential community services remain
available for the approximately 44,000 non-Medicaid persons now served by CCP.
Therefore,
pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I
hereby return House Bill 4351, entitled “AN ACT concerning public aid”, with
the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.
Sincerely,
Bruce
Rauner
GOVERNOR