Pandemic Worsening Worker Shortages For Medicaid Program That Provides Families Home-Based Care For Kids With Disabilities.

Disability Scoop (1/20, Ollove) reports that the almost 40-year-old Medicaid program, the Katie Beckett Waiver Program, “enables families who earn too much to qualify for regular health care coverage to tap into home-based services.” Many families “would have to place their children in an institution” without that aid. The article adds, “Tennessee this month became the 50th state to offer a Katie Beckett program or one like it,” but the COVID-19 pandemic “has worsened worker shortages in home health care, and advocates fear tightening budgets might mean cuts to the program.”