Idaho caregivers are expressing deep concerns about potential Medicaid funding cuts that could eliminate crucial home and community-based services. These cuts could threaten both the people they care for and their own livelihoods as the state legislature considers budget reductions.
One service that particularly worries caregivers is Home and Community Based Services, known as HCBS, which allows Medicaid members to receive care in their own homes or communities rather than institutions.
"I would probably lose my home, lose my car," said Michelle Lafferty, a caregiver who depends on these programs for her income.
WATCH: Idaho caregivers express concerns amid proposed Medicaid cuts
Will and Ute Hathaway operate a certified family home and currently care for four non-family members. They reached out on Facebook to express their concerns about the potential impact of cuts.
"So certified family homes just kind of fill a gap. So it’s a real need, those people either go to a more expensive facility, or they become homeless and on the street," Will Hathaway said.
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The emotional toll on patients would be severe, according to Ute Hathaway.
"Doing this interview with you in our home, we wouldn't have been able to do this in our home because if they would get the slightest hint that they would have to move, they would be in a crisis, in a mental crisis," she said.
Mary K. Spears, who has been a caregiver for more than 20 years and serves as president of the nonprofit My Places Community Events, which connects people who use home-based services, worries about more than just the physical impact on patients.
"Having the ability to walk in and see someone smile and greet you reduces that social anxiety we can all get when going into new things," Spears said.
She believes the psychological impact could be devastating.
"Death isn't the worst part,” Spears said. “Imagine knowing that if not for one thing, you would have everything good for your life, be able to live your life. And not only knowing what that's like, having that, and then having it taken away.”
Caregivers argue that cutting these programs could actually cost the state more money in the long run.
"We are cheaper. They pay us way less money than they have to pay an assisted living or any other facility they go to," Ute Hathaway explained.
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Republican Representative Josh Tanner believes that HCBS is an essential program under Medicaid, but there is little flexibility in what gets cut.
"The federal government hasn't given us the tools to kind of modify it for Idaho, the little tiny levers to pull. They give us massive levers. Either you can have the program, or you can't have the program," Tanner said. "If you get rid of everything else that you possibly can, you still have too large of a budget in there, then it's what, which one of those actually gets cut. I think that one is a really tough one if you were to actually try to cut that one.”
If services are cut, caregivers said the impact would be felt on both sides, by patients and by the workers who care for them.
"I hope I'm not going nowhere," Lafferty said. I would be so devastated."
The Hathaways, who have been providing care for 15 years, worry about their future employment prospects.
"I'm 60, my husband is 64, we're at the age now where it would be hard to find a job for us to work at our age," Ute Hathaway said.
