Please call and email members of the House Article II Subcommittee, March 14! Have everyone you know call them. Tell members of the House Appropriations Committee on Article II (two) that they must pass the Interest List Elimination Plan and Interest List Reporting riders by Representative Donna Howard. They are meeting to consider riders tomorrow morning at 8AM! Tell them how much the interest list impacts people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) NOW!

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HOUSTON AREA FOLKS TO HIT ON ARTICLE II:

CHAIR JETTON

REP. WU

REP. GATES

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Please Support the Interest List Elimination Plan Rider by Howard

This rider would require the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to develop a plan to eliminate the interest lists for HCS, CLASS, DBMD, TxHmL MDCP, and STAR+PLUS HCBS by 2024. WE NEED A PLAN!!!!!

• Over the last decade, Texas has made significant investments in road, water, and energy infrastructure. But as more than one thousand people move to Texas every single day, a strategy to expand and improve the state’s care infrastructure is crucial.

• Strong families are the foundation of a healthy society. Care infrastructure includes the policies, resources, and services necessary to help Texas families meet their caregiving needs.

• As Texas is blessed with a historic surplus, there is no better time to consider investments to benefit the growing economy and families through care infrastructure.

• We need a plan to eliminate the interest lists to support better care infrastructure and pro-family policies.

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 Please Support the Interest List Reporting Rider by Howard

This rider would require HHSC to post enhanced monthly information about interest lists for HCS, CLASS, DBMD, TxHmL, MDCP, and STAR+PLUS HCBS. This enhancement will require the type of services persons may require, based on the services provided by the program in which the person is interested to be posted online.

• Texas must work to ensure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities receive long term services and supports in a timely, appropriate, and community-based manner.

• To fully reach Texas’ goals for building stronger families, Texas should acknowledge the out-of-pocket and opportunity costs associated with becoming a parent of a child with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and advance policies that support families.

• Ensuring family caregivers have the resources they need to continue to support disabled people in the community is critical to containing the rising costs of health care.

• Plank 152 of the platform of the Texas Republican Party called on the legislature “to invest in and fully fund home and community-based services (HCBS) as a pro-life policy, and to enact associated policy solutions to protect, preserve, and defend the sanctity and dignity of human life. We urge the Legislature to address any loopholes that fail to protect or provide appropriate home and community-based supports and access to care for children and people with disabilities. In addition, we ask that families be provided with information about life-affirming social and medical services available to them in Texas as alternatives to abortion and costly institutional care.

• Reinforce the dignity of work by expecting and empowering people with disabilities receiving public benefits to participate in the labor force, both to contribute to society and to model the virtues of consistency, conscientiousness, and self-sufficiency. All Medicaid waivers offer services to support employment goals and skills.

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There are over 156,000 Texans waiting on a waiver.

Serious surveillance gaps limit our understanding of service utilization rates, unmet needs, and health and other outcomes for adults with IDD.[1]

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Number of People Being Served by Waiver

LBB Targeted Enrollment3 by 8/31/23

HCS          TxHmL          CLASS1          DBMD1

29,211      5,019             6,344              344

 

 Number of People Waiting by Waiver

Interest List Counts as of January 2023

HCS          TxHmL          CLASS          DBMD

113,340    102,413         80,096          1,486

The total of Current Interest List Counts in the above table is a duplicated count.

The unduplicated count across all six Interest Lists is: 156,345.

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Discover How Many People Are Waiting on a Waiver Where You Live

Find maps produced by The Arc of Texas showing how many Texans on Medicaid waiver interest lists live within each State House, State Senate, and Congressional district as of July 2022. The Medicaid waivers being tracked are all CLASS, DBMD, HCS, MDCP, STAR+ PLUS, and TxHmL.

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House Committee on Appropriations - S/C on Article II      

Clerk: Briana Novian

Phone: (512) 463-1807

Appointment Date: 2/15/2023          

Room: EXT E1.032

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Jetton, Jacey (R)

District 26

E1.220

(512) 463-0710

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Rose, Toni (D)

District 110

4N.5

(512) 463-0664

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Gates, Gary (R)

District 28

E2.506

(512) 463-0657

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Howard, Donna (D)

District 48

GW.11

(512) 463-0631

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Orr, Angelia (F) (R)

District 13

E1.218

(512) 463-0600

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Stucky, Lynn (R)

District 64

E2.822

(512) 463-0582

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Wu, Gene (D)

District 137

GW.8

(512) 463-0492

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE’S OFFICE TODAY!