The elderly, disabled wait

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by the 7,000 South Carolinians

who need critical health services.

As many as 7,000 disabled or elderly South Carolinians are eligible for state health-care services but they're not receiving those services, according to a recent (Columbia) State news story. Heads of state agencies blame the budget cuts over the past several years for the lengthy waiting lists. Those budget cuts were prompted both by a sagging economy and a frenzy of tax-cutting in the 1990s that sharply reduced state revenues.

The result is that 3,000 elderly and largely destitute South Carolinians do not have access to long-term at-home care in their communities. The program helps the elderly with meals, bathing, getting dressed and other services in their own home. That allows the elderly to avoid nursing homes, which cost the state more money.

Meanwhile, the waiting list for elderly South Carolinians who do need more intensive nursing home care stands at 300.

Waiting lists for the severely disabled are equally long and distressing. More than 1,700 South Carolinians — suffering from autism, mental retardation and head or spinal cord injuries — are on the waiting list for out-of-home placement in residential facilities. The state Disability and Special Needs Department, the agency responsible for helping those individuals, has not placed a single new person in residential care for three years. The director of the agency, Stan Butkus, blames the problem on budget cuts of $26 million over the past three years.

Meanwhile, the department says it has another waiting list of 1,700 several disabled individuals who need in-home support. Such services include personal care, home modifications and respite services.

Butkus warned Gov. Mark Sanford that the state could very well be sued for its inability to provide services to those who need them. He cites a Supreme Court decision requiring states to reduce waiting lists for services for the disabled. In South Carolina, those waiting lists are not falling but growing.

It wouldn't be the first time, of course, that the state got sued for inadequately funding its own agencies. The state Corrections and Juvenile Justice departments both were under federal court order in the past to improve conditions.

But the state shouldn't wait for a lawsuit to do right by its most frail and vulnerable South Carolinians. One source of revenue that shouldn't be overlooked next year is an increase in the cigarette tax, which could bring in millions for Medicaid. That, in turn, would provide more money for the disabled, elderly and indigent health care.

Many lawmakers have claimed that providing critical services is a matter of setting priorities. If lawmakers can help the elderly and disabled without an increase in the cigarette tax, they should do so. If not, they shouldn't shrink yet again from raising the tobacco tax. ý Underset=-02367þ