5104.0: Wednesday, November 15, 2000: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM | ||||
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| Current federal and state law requires dependency on cash transfer payments by individuals with severe disabilities as a requisite to eligibility for publicly financed health care coverage, namely Medicare and Medicaid. To exacerbate this policy conundrum, the private health care insurance market has effectively underwritten most people with severe disabilities out of coverage through the pre-existing medical condition clauses. Research has demonstrated that income dependency and poverty are precursors to a range of secondary health conditions including depression and substance abuse. The Building Health Systems for People with Chronic Illness Initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has made a substantial investment in supporting work incentive demonstrations in OR, WI and VT for people living with severe disabilities. Additionally, RWJF funded an external evaluation of these initiatives as well as an advocacy and technical assistance grant to assist these and other states in their policy reform efforts. The panelists in this session will highlight the intervention strategies employed by the states and the challenges and successes each state has encountered during the first two years of program implementation as well as the research challenges they invoke. Session participants will better understand the disincentives to employment in current disability policy; the relationship between perceived employment barriers and work activity; between work and health status; and learn about the innovative ways that states have uncoupled health care coverage from cash transfer payment systems by jerry-rigging policies, rules, and regulations to assure health care coverage for severely disabled workers as they pursue their employment goals | ||||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement. | ||||
| Learning Objectives: Refer to the individual abstracts for learning objectives | ||||
| Nancy Mudrick, PhD | ||||
| Peter Baird, MS Lynnae Ruttledge Barry Delin, PhD Jay Wussow, MPH | ||||
| Pamela P. Hanes, PhD | ||||
| 3 States’ work incentive initiatives: From problem identification to program implementation Peter Baird, John Reiser, Lynnae Ruttledge | ||||
| Documenting impacts: Doing research in a turbulent policy environment Pamela Hanes, PhD, Tina Edlund, MS, Amy Maher, MPH, Barry S. Delin, PhD | ||||
| Documenting the problem: States and RWJF come together to form a nucleus for change Jay Wussow, Mary Ridgely, Peter Baird | ||||
| Managing the policy environment: State initiatives pushing for federal policy reform Allen Jensen, Robert Silverstein, JD | ||||
| Sponsor: | Disability Forum | |||
| Cosponsors: | Community Health Planning and Policy Development; Health Administration; Social Work; Socialist Caucus | |||