A widower raising four kids on $1,000 a month is suing Medicaid after the government program refused to pay for diapers for his 16-year-old daughter who has severe cerebral palsy.
In the lawsuit, Floyd Smith claims that Florida’s Medicaid program is violating federal law by refusing to cover the cost of diapers for his daughter Sharett and others like her.
Sharett is non-verbal and she is unable to walk or use her hands.
Currently diapers are Smith’s largest monthly expenditure after rent and he finds himself choosing between them and food.
Two other states — Arizona and Louisiana — once excluded diapers from their Medicaid coverage, but both states lost when the issue was brought to court, Smith’s lawyers say.
Currently the only option Smith has besides paying for the diapers himself is to send Sharett to an institution, which he is unwilling to do, reports The Miami Herald.
More in Health & Behavior »
Copyright © 2009 Disability Scoop, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated and will not appear until they are approved. All comments must be in compliance with the DisabilityScoop.com Terms and Conditions. Please stay on-topic, keep your comments brief and refrain from inserting links or using abusive language.
You must be logged in to post a comment. Click here to login or register.
It would cost the state a whole lot more if Floyd Smith did dispose of his child in a prison for the unwanted–which is what nursing homes and institutions are. State institutions ran $30,000 per year in the 1980s. So figure on at least $100,000. That is a lot of diapers. Florida still uses them more than most states and they are probably just as bad as they ever were. I had a student in Georgia who was sent to one in Florida when they could not find a new foster home for him. A few months later he died. The institution was called Sunland I believe. His father had beaten his brains out when he was a baby. Sweet child.
There might be a couple of options for diapers. If Sharret has a PCA it is possible they could be gotten, wholesale or free through the medical company the PCA comes from. In Atlanta, the poorest parents got theirs through the public hospital, Grady. That is another possibility, the public hospital, although they tended to be poorly fitting and low quality. I have had parents buy diapers by the case and come out much cheaper. One of my parents sent a case to the school at the first of the school year and I kept them in the classroom.
It is possible that her diapers for school can be put in her Nursing Plan in Sharret’s IEP. What the school recommends in the IEP the school pays for! This is a health and sanitation issue. Daddy needs talk to the school nurse. She cannot be left wet. Her school counselor or social worker might be able to get access for her
Another issue is coming up. When Sharret turns 18, even though she will still be in school for 3-4 more years (year of her 22nd birthday) he will have to re-apply for Adult Medicaid and Adult SSI for her. The benefits are different and she may be able to get more money. I hope he has applied for her Medicaid Waiver. Contact the Medicaid office and also have her officially declared incompetent so that when daddy goes back to work he can still take her off of his income tax. It is also important that she not be pushed out of school before that time because the adult programs often won’t take them before they age out and she will lose services.
I have had many multihandicapped students similar to Sharret. She knows more than you think. She also needs to have a brain stem vision test because the reason she does not watch TV and appears to be so low functioning might be because she does not see well, perhaps has cortical blindness. Multis are normally visual learners if they can see. They love TV! And if she does not listen to music, her hearing should be tested. They ADORE music. This can be hard to determine with low functioning children, but if glasses or hearing aids would help they could also help her do more for herself. Both need to be gotten while she is still on Children’s Medicaid. Multihandicapped kids are almost always higher functioning mentally than their bodies let them show. And I can guarantee that this girl misses her mama and loves her daddy and sisters. And she appreciates their love for her.
If anyone opposes this child getting government help they had better not also refer to themselves as Christians or Pro-life. Florida still has Republicans in charge and they are always cutting back on important, life affirming programs so Mr. Smith probably has a tough fight ahead.