MONEY FOLLOWS THE PERSON NEEDS PERMANENT REAUTHORIZATION
Eight (8) states’ federal Money Follows the Person projects ran out of funds as of December 31, 2017. According to Dr. Steve Kaye, University of California San Francisco, below please find the total number of people transitioned and the MFP “performance” ranking on a per capita basis for these eight states.
| State | People transitioned | Per capita rank |
|---|---|---|
| Delaware | 328 | 14 |
| Illinois | 3177 | 22 |
| Kansas | 1728 | 6 |
| Massachusetts | 2151 | 10 |
| New Hampshire | 308 | 25 |
| North Dakota | 422 | 7 |
| Texas | 12533 | 20 |
| Virginia | 1404 | 41 |
Folks in these states, please call and visit your US Senators’ offices while they are home on recess and demand they stop agreeing to short term funding extensions that completely disallow the above eight states from participating in the federal MFP program. Some of the top MFP states are being cut out for no good reason other than that they were early champions of MFP participation.
The University of California, San Francisco Community Living Policy Center has released a report reviewing the success of the federal Money Follows the Program. The report finds that states using the program have successfully “rebalanced” long term services and supports, showing a reduction in nursing home occupancy rates, community living as an option even for residents who had been expected to stay in institutions permanently, and cost-efficiencies in the overall long term services and supports system through the shift toward home and community based services.
The report is located at: https://clpc.ucsf.edu/news/new-report-highlights-importance-money-follows-person
Please print this report and take it to your Senators’ local offices while they are home on recess. Ask to meet with staff to support our advocacy for the permanent re-authorization of the federal Money Follows the Person program during this long August recess of Congress. This report documents real savings through re-balancing of LTSS towards community; savings that could be exponentially larger if people are not forced to go into institutions in the first instance. The report ultimately concludes, “It is a successful program that merits a permanent place in national policy.”