Disabled decry Blunt's budget cuts

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- She lives in her own home. But Chris Cepluch cannot live on her own.

A paid personal assistant helps her cook, bathe and get dressed. And an electric wheelchair provides a measure of freedom her cerebral palsy would not otherwise allow. Both the equipment and the in-home aide are funded through the state.

And both could face cuts under Gov. Matt Blunt's proposed budget.

"In order for Chris to continue to live -- and I emphasis live -- her life, she requires the support staff and use of adaptive equipment," her mother, Annette Cepluch, told lawmakers Tuesday as they began hearing public testimony on Blunt's budget. The proposed cuts "would be devastating."

Blunt's proposed reductions to the Mental Health Department and the Medicaid health-care program have sparked concern among the disabled, their parents and advocates.

"People with disabilities seem to be targeted in virtually every area, from birth to death," said Terry Mackey, a parent of three developmentally disabled children and president of the Arthur Center, of Mexico, Mo., which provides mental health services for the state.

Mackey and Cepluch were two of about 45 people who testified during the daylong hearing of the House Appropriations Committee for Health, Mental Health and Social Services. Witnesses pleaded their cases on everything from family planning to nursing home grants, with quite a few focusing on the state's services for the disabled.

At least one witness, a representative of a children's advocacy group, praised Blunt's budget for shielding children's services from the cuts.

Blunt "put children first" when weighing how to cut Medicaid, which had doubled in cost over the past six years, said spokesman Spence Jackson.

"The governor knows how difficult these decisions are because he has to make them," Jackson said in statement. "He believes they are the right decisions for all the people because we have to fix our broken budget."

Blunt's budget includes a roughly 25 percent reduction in the income eligibility criteria for disabled Medicaid recipients -- down to about $580 a month from the current $775. It also would eliminate a program that allows many disabled to continue their Medicaid coverage while working part-time. And it would end Medicaid coverage for such things as wheelchairs, ambulance rides and prosthetics.