Olmstead Status: Louisiana

Louisiana

Task Force

The Disability Services and Support System Planning Group (DSSSPG) and the Consumer Task Force (CTF), key participants in Olmstead planning, are funded by the Real Choice Systems Grant and staffed by the Governor's Office of Disability Affairs (GODA). The DSSSPG and CTF were created through legislation during the 2001 legislative session. The governor's office collects statistics and makes special studies of conditions pertaining to individuals with disabilities.

The Department of Health and Hospitals submitted a draft report to the Consumer Task Force on August 20, 2002. After that meeting, the CTF and DSSSPG developed a Phase II report and are in the process of finalizing the report for review. After the October 2002 meeting, the task force members have been compiling a list of recommendations for state activities into the format of goals and objectives for presentation at the next Disability Services and System Support Planning Group Meeting in December 2002. The task force members do not anticipate any action on the report until early 2003.

Implementation

Legislation
There was no 2002 legislation related to the Olmstead decision.

Successes
A significant success was bringing together a variety of state agencies and organizations to work productively.

Challenges

The biggest impediment is lack of funding.

Lawsuits

The Barthelemy case was an Olmstead-style challenge to the waiting lists for home and community-based waiver programs for people who needed nursing facility levels of care. A settlement agreement, which calls for Louisiana to eliminate its waiting lists by offering additional waiver slots and adopting personal care for this population as a state plan service, was approved in October 2001. The settlement calls for implementation over a four-year period. For an update on lawsuits in Louisiana and other states, see Status Report: Litigation Concerning Medicaid Services for Persons with Developmental and Other Disabilities by Gary A. Smith at http://www.hsri.org/index.asp?id=news

Next Steps

Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals received a $1.385 million Real Choice Systems Change Grant during fiscal years 2002-2003.

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