The Generations Project - Helping Hoosiers

January 23, 2012

A Common Ground, Common Sense Solution to RTW

Today leaders of t he Indiana Home Care Task Force asked legislators to follow a "Common Sense, Common Ground Plan " to stop the stand-off on the Right to Work (RTW) issue.

Click here to read about today's press conferencee and the plan presented.

January 10, 2012

The Generations Project released a white paper today: Critical Public Policy Questions "Regarding Right to Work" and the Potential Impact on Senior Citizens and Persons with Disabilities in Indiana.

The paper concludes that Indiana would be best served by not rushing into passing right to work legislation but by taking a second or third look at what this legislation will do. Read the entire document to find out why this law may not be a good idea. Click here to read the entire paper.

John Cardwell, Director of the Generations Project, & United Senior Action, and President of Hoosiers First, joined Denny Lanane, President of United Senior Action and Elmer Blankenship, President of the Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans in a press conference today to talk about why "RTW Spells Trouble for Union Retirees, Their Dependents, and Hoosiers. Click here to read about the press conference.

October 2011

Positive ideas for addressing the national spending crisis

The Generations Project has just published a new article to provide citizens and public officials with positive ideas for addressing the national spending crisis. The article, Home and Community Based Services in Federal and State Policy: Considerations from Indiana and Elsewhere, follows in its entirety on this website. The paper advocates the use of home and community based services (HCBS) delivered through state programs, such as Indiana’s CHOICE program, and the extensive use of Medicaid waivers, in order to provide better care and to save money. The article also strongly recommends giving legal entitlement status to publicly funded HCBS programs in order to stop the forced placement of citizens in nursing homes and other institutions….and as a means for saving tax dollars

Click here for the entire article: Home and Community Based Services in Federal and State Policy: Considerations from Indiana and Elsewhere

Winter 2012 Action Steps

What You Can Do to Impact Long Term Care Policy in Indiana and in Washington D.C.

August 2011

The Good Road Home: Fifteen actions Indiana should take now to rebalance it's spending on long term care.

These are common sense actions to improve the quality of life for all Hoosiers, save enormous sums of taxpayer dollars, and boost the state’s economy. These are actions that would allow senior citizens, persons with
disabilities, and family caregivers to live with substantial dignity and freedom. These recommendations should be implemented now: quickly, competently and thoroughly. Doing less than this is not acceptable.

Read the entire report by clicking here.

August 2011

Indiana Continues With Its Implementation of the Hybrid Welfare System - Click here to read full story

August 2011

Hoosiers Should Understand the Benefits of the PPACA, and the Big Risks Associated with the Budget Control Act

Hoosiers trying to understand what is going on in Indiana regarding two important policy and human service initiatives have a right to be confused and deeply concerned. The 2010 federal 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the 2011 federal Budget Control Act are complicated and intertwined with each other and many other laws and public programs. Nonetheless, citizens will be well served to know what these laws actually do. The Generations Project will attempt over the next several weeks to assist people in understanding these important laws.

The state's compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has swirled about amid contradictory statements from public officials, both elected and appointed. Some of the statements and actions by state officials have been openly hostile to the act and include challenging its constitutionality. Nonetheless, the act contains many, many features that will be very helpful to senior citizens, persons with disabilities, minorities, low income persons, and persons who have been discriminated against by insurance companies due to pre-existing medical conditions. Credible experts have said the PPACA could offer significant economic benefits to Indiana and its residents over time if Congress and state officials allow it to be fully implemented. In fact, the act is already providing Hoosiers with significant benefits and many more are scheduled to come on line over the next several years under the new law's provisions. As indicated above, those benefits will be identified on ths website in the coming weeks.

On August 23, 2011, the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration presented to the General Assembly's Select Joint Commission on Medicaid Oversight (SJCMO)the state's efforts, so far, to implement the PPACA. Click here for the link to the state's PPACA presentation. In the near future, The Generations Project will offer its own analysis of the PPACA and its benefits for Hoosiers.

Additionally, The Generations Project will soon publish its analysis of the Budget Control Act. As readers are aware, the United States nearly defaulted on its debt obligations before the Congress was able to find enough compromise to pass the act. Why? Because a significant block of Congressmen were insisting on severe cuts in federally funded programs that profoundly affect Americans and this nation's security. As passed, the law does implement a number of cuts in non-security and security programs funded and/or administered by the federal government. The law also gave Congress the authority to implement a second round of more severe cuts that could include Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and over time, features of the PPACA. The second round of cuts must be determined by the Congress before the end of the current fiscal year, and if Congress cannot agree on what cuts to make the law will trigger a set of automatic cuts. Watch this website for a more complete analysis in the coming days.

August 2, 2011

An Open Letter to Members of the Indiana Congressional Delegation Concerning the Debt Ceiling Crisis

John Cardwell, Executive Director, The Generations Project

As members of Congress, I believe that each of you, when the whole of your collective service is fairly examined, have made important contributions to Indiana and the nation. However, the acid debate that is now going on in Washington does not set well with any of my family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues. It demeans your collective and individuals achievements and intellect. It demeans your ability to lead when we need leadership.

Click here to read entire letter that was published Aug. 2 in the Indianapolis Star.

June 21, 2011

Senior Hunger and the Older Americans Act

Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary Administration on Aging
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Read the entire testimony...

April 6, 2011 Joint Press Release

--- Legislative Leaders Should STOP Using FSSA’s Bad Data Now ---

(State House, Indianapolis) On April 6, 2011, leaders representing United Senior Action, Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans, Hoosiers First, and other member organizations of the Indiana Home Care Task Force called on the Indiana General Assembly to stop basing budget and policy decisions on data presented by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA). The civic leaders believe the data presented by FSSA has been grossly misrepresented by the agency. In their view, the continued use of FSSA’s “bad” data is causing legislators to make decisions, such as cuts in home care services that will place senior citizens and persons with disabilities in severe jeopardy according to the leaders.

The leaders recommended a straight forward solution to the problems being created by FSSA: put in the 2011 state budget act the same language and funding levels regarding the CHOICE program that were in the 2009 budget law passed by the General Assembly. Those details appear at the end of this press release as a Joint Statement Regarding CHOICE from the Indiana Home Care Task Force.

Click this link for the full text of the press release and the fact sheet.

*** The policy model could help solve Indiana's terrible long term care crisis***

(February, 2011) Indiana policy makers continue to resist moving forward with policies and legislation to re-balance the state's long term care system. As a result, more than 28,500 Hoosiers are forced to live in nursing homes due to the lack of home and community based services. When compared to Washington, with a similar population, Indiana has as many as 18,000 people living in nursing home who should be receiving home and community based services through the CHOICE home care program or through a Medicaid waiver….and that is not counting the huge number of people with developmental disabilities that continue to be without services and without hope.

According to Elmer Blankenship, President of The Generations Project Governing Board and President of the Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans, the lack of effective administrative or legislative action by the state is a wrong that is harming Hoosiers now. "The failure of Indiana to re-balance its system of long term care means far too many people are forced to live in horrible circumstances, living with the reality of being forced into poverty and the very real fear of forced institutionalization and/or premature death. That is simply wrong in an advanced and civilized society," states Mr. Blankenship.

The Generations Project has developed a model bill that if adopted as administrative policy, or legislation, or both, could set the stage for re-balancing the state's system of long term care. In 2002, a model bill researched and written by the Project for the Indiana Home Care Task Force, a voluntary alliance of nearly seventy organizations, was later crafted into law by the 2003 General Assembly. That law, SEA 493, established a legal framework for re-balancing the state's long term care system, but it did not mandate a shifting of dollars from Medicaid into home and community based services as a result of the savings that are created whenever HCBS services are used. Instead, the law made the use of those savings for HCBS a "may" provision and, sad to say, state administrations have chosen not to do that.

According to John Cardwell, Director of The Generations Project and Executive Director of United Senior Action, most of the provisions of the 2003 law have simply been ignored by state officials. According to Cardwell, "We hardly talk about SEA 493 these days. It was a great law that provided Indiana the means for re-balancing its long term care system, but the will to implement SEA 493 quickly waned and state officials took advantage of the provision in the act that has allowed them to use any savings created by publicly funded HCBS for other purposes. In other words, Indiana refuses to use the savings created in its Medicaid nursing home budget whenever a person is placed in home care at a far lower cost instead of being placed in a nursing home. Indiana refuses to let people access home care. We now have 11,000 Hoosiers on waiting lists for home and community based services through the CHOICE program and the Medicaid aged and disabled waiver. That leaves them no option but Medicaid funded nursing home care because care in those institutions remains a legal entitlement while home care in not. That is simply awful public policy. It is literally bankrupting citizens, forcing people into nursing homes against their will, and forces taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for inappropriate nursing home care every year. It is a brutal and economic foolish way to run publicly financed long term care services."

The model bill that follows could solve many of the problems that plague Indiana's long term care system, problems that literally put the lives of citizens at risk and all Hoosiers in economic jeopardy.

Will the state administration or the General Assembly act on the opportunity presented in the model bill, or in similar proposals? That is a question being raised by The Generations Project and the many organizations that compose the Indiana Home Care Task Force. But an answer must be found. Indiana is in a fiscal crisis and the state's long term care policies, which seemed designed to rush money into the nursing home industry before the public refuses to feed the golden goose, is no longer financially sustainable.

Click here to read the model bill.

CHOICE Home Care Services Placed in Jeopardy

Please read the testimony of John Cardwell, Director of The Generations Project, given before the Ways and Means Committee of the Indiana House of Representatives on February 7, 2011. John Cardwell, Richard Simers of the Paralyzed Hoosier Veterans, Al Tolbert of the Southern Indiana Center for Independent Living, Nancy Griffin of United Senior Action, and two advocates for people with disabilities, Linda Muckway of Muncie and Susie Kuper of Indianapolis, were asked to present testimony from the perspective of citizens who need publicly funded home and community based services (HCBS). Together, they testified regarding the importance of Indiana's CHOICE In-Home Services program. Their testimony made it clear that CHOICE keeps people out of nursing homes, while letting them live safe, free and at far less cost in their own homes. In the 2011 Indiana General Assembly, CHOICE and other HCBS services are at great risks because of radical cuts in care that are being proposed by the Daniels administration. These cuts are being proposed by the state even though there is strong evidence the outcome will be increased costs for taxpayers as citizens are forced into expensive Medicaid funded nursing homes."

To read the full text of John Cardwell's testimony click here.

June 2010

Lessons from Home Applied: The Recommendations of the Round Table Education Series on Home and Community Based Services in Indiana

Be patient, this is a large file and may take a while to download.

Many of the documents on this website appear in PDF format. These files can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available as a free download at: