How will the potential federal Medicaid cuts affect IHSS hours, and how much could be cut?

That is a great question to which there is no good answer. Right now, the issue is that home and community-based services, and IHSS is one of those services, are an optional service under Medicaid. The statutes that establish Medicaid list out certain things that they're required to provide, and then there are certain services that states can choose to include in their Medicaid package. IHSS is one of them, which is why there are so few states who have it.

The problem is that any substantial cuts to Medicaid, regardless of whether they're designed to target people with disabilities, have the potential to pose a risk to optional programs; optional programs might be the first programs that states are looking to cut in order to make up for budget shortfalls elsewhere in the program. Because California opted to do the Medicaid expansion and to make Medi-Cal available to more people, they may choose to maintain that expansion at a cost to other programs.

Right now, the best thing that you can be doing is reaching out to your house representatives and your senators, especially the house representatives because that's where it's being considered right now, and make sure that they understand how important these programs are to our families. Make sure that they understand that cuts to Medicaid, even if they're not targeting these programs, are going to impact these programs. Share your story. Tell them about your child, especially if you live in a district where you're not sure how your representative might be voting on this. Call them. Put a face on it. They don't all understand, even though they're elected representatives, how important these services are to families of kids with disabilities. So make them see. Tell them. Share. Urge them not to support cuts to Medicaid.

See our article Parent Advocacy for Disability Rights: What We Can Do Now to Protect Our Children’s Rights.