At least forty-one states are faced or are facing shortfalls in their budgets for 2008/2009. Over half of these states have already cut spending, raised revenues, or used reserves in order to adopt a balanced budget for the current fiscal year due to crisis, which started July 1st in most states. Now that balance has been lost and new gaps have opened up in the budgets of at least thirty-one states plus the District of Columbia just four months after they struggled to secure the largest budget deficits seen since the recession of 2001. These issues are predicted to continue well into the next year. The countries continuing economic problems have resulted in leading some twenty-five states to reduce services to their residents, including some of their most vulnerable families and individuals. While some fourteen states have increased taxes or taken other revenue raising measures to aid the need for mitigation, Americans with disabilities are fearful of the changes they are and may face over the next couple of years.
At least fifteen states are cutting medical, rehabilitative, home care, or other services needed by low-income individuals who have disabilities, or significantly increasing the cost of these services. Even in the years leading up to our current economic problems, many states did not have enough funding to spend on key services. Now as what little services some states have are being limited, hope is fading that these key programs and services will ever become a reality. Already the state of Florida has frozen reimbursements to nursing homes and relaxed staffing standards and Arizona eliminated temporary health insurance for people with serious medical problems. Many disabled Americans require new, stable, lifelong support and resources, but now they are quickly loosing what little they have to begin with.
Act now and urge the new administration to implement solutions to prevent further and future suffering of disabled Americans and their loved ones.
