New York -- April 13, 2018
The Initiative was formed in 2013, under the leadership of former Republican Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D) and Bill Frist (R), and Dr. Alice Rivlin, who was Congressional Budget Office Director in the Clinton administration. The Initial Recommendations to Improve the Financing of Long-Term Care report, released Monday, includes a section on expanding HCBS by streamlining the waiver process.Currently, states receive waivers of federal Medicaid requirements in order to include home health and other services, and approximately 3 million individuals receive HCBS each year thanks to these waivers. Still, the amount of HCBS varies dramatically among states, in part because the process of getting waivers through state plan amendments (SPAs) is too complicated, the report states.