Florida’s Medicaid program must cover diapers, a judge has ruled in a lawsuit brought by a widower who could not afford incontinence products for his 17-year-old daughter with severe cerebral palsy.
Sharett Smith, 17, is non-verbal and is not able to walk or use her hands. Due to her limited cognitive abilities, her father Floyd Smith says he has never been able to successfully toilet-train her.
A single father, Smith is raising four children on $1,000 a month and cannot afford the $200 to $300 a month in diapers that Sharett needs. He sued Florida’s Medicaid program alleging that refusing to cover the cost of diapers for his daughter Sharett and others like her was a violation of federal law.
U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold agreed, ordering Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration to pay for the diapers he called necessary rather than a convenience. The ruling could affect 12,000 children in the state, reports the Miami Herald. To read more click here.
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I read about this one when it first came out. I am glad to see the father winning. Medicaid should provide whatever a disabled person needs to stay out of a nursing home. Now they need to go after Ensure for adults on Medicaid. Age should not matter, particularly when it comes to people with cognitive disabilities and especially when they are multihandicapped. Florida is run by Republicans. Remember that when you vote. They still put a lot of people in institutions.