Testimony, Comments & Positions

2010 Legislative Activities

Legislative Testimony

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Medical Care Advisory Committee

MCAC Public Hearing

Monday, July 12, 2010

DSHS LAR Comments

May 12

Senate Health and Human Services Committee

Public Hearing Related to Charge # 6

2nd Testimony Related to Charge #6

April 21, 2010

Senate Education Committee

Testimony Related to Charge #2 of the Senate Interim Charges

2nd Testimony Related to Charge #2 of the Senate Interim Charges

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Senate Health and Human Services Committee

Health and Human Services Public Hearing

2nd Testimony Related to Health and Human Services Public Hearing

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Senate Health and Human Services Committee

Health and Human Services Public Hearing

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Senate Health & Human Services Committee

Testimony Related to Charge # 13 of the Senate Interim Charges (Posted 3/22/10)

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Letter to the House Appropriations Committee

House Committee on Appropriations Testimony #28 (Posted 03/12/10)

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Senate Committee on Health & Human Services

Senate Chamber

Interim Charge #5:  Oral testimony and written comments on the importance of social workers as a part of the healthcare delivery team were offered by Susan Milam, Ph.D., LMSW, NASW/TX Government Relations Director and Colette Nies, MSSW Student Intern at NASW/TX.

Comments provided to Texas Health and Human Services Agency Council regarding proposed budget reductions for Fiscal Years 2010-2011 by Sue Milam, Ph.D., NASW/TX Government Relations Director

February 12, 2010

Dear Honorable Health and Human Service Agency Council Members:

The Texas Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers appreciates this opportunity to comment on the proposed budget reductions for the Health and Human Services agencies.  We recognize the seriousness and the difficulty that you and agency staff face in proposing the reductions due to the request from the Legislative Budget Board and the Governor’s Office.  Because our membership, social workers across Texas, serves many of the HHS agencies’ clients, we are very concerned about the effects of the reductions for these clients.  Often we are in a position to help a person connect with available services and many of these cuts will mean that the clients have nowhere to turn.

From our review, it is clear that each agency sought to minimize the negative impact of their respective reductions, but clearly it is not possible to avoid causing harm to HHS agencies’ clients when forced to make reductions of this size.  Specifically, we are concerned about reductions that have the potential of harming people at the bottom of the economic spectrum, who are already suffering greatly from economic hardship.  We respectfully request that you reconsider cuts to the following programs because of what would seem to risk the health status (physical and mental) of an already vulnerable population:

• FQHC Incubator Grants:  FQHCs offer basic health and mental health services to people who often have nowhere else to turn.  More than ever, low income clients need the services local FQHCs      because most private providers will not serve them.
   
• Hospital Indigent Health Care Reimbursement – Trauma Funds:  hospitals are usually the provider of last resort for people in poverty; it is an unfair burden on those hospitals to not reimburse them for their indigent care costs.  These kinds of cuts can result in overt and/or covert ways that hospitals will discourage indigent patients from being served.
   
• Regional health services:  cuts in funding to regional offices will result in reduced staffing, fewer immunizations, less TB control, etc., likely resulting in threats to the public’s health and increased  costs in hospitalizations.
   
• Children with Special Health Care Needs:  removing these children from the 2011 waiting list only pushes those costs onto families and non-profit organizations and/or results in the child not receiving the necessary services.
   
• MH Hospital Capacity at several hospitals:  the elimination of beds means that these patients will either end up on the streets or in jail or worse. More beds are needed, not fewer.
   
• Provider rate reductions:  providers of care to the clients of the HHS agencies have been struggling to maintain services over the past years of cuts.  Last year’s rate increase barely brought providers back to “pre-cut” rates.  To cut provider rates again is counterproductive, especially as the state reduces its own staff and level of services.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your proposed reductions.  We hope that you, the Legislative Budget Board, and the Governor’s Office will agree that cuts in certain areas of Health and Human Services will be detrimental to Texas, both in terms of the health of its citizens and the ultimate costs that will be incurred in other areas of the state budget.  The Texas Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers stands ready to assist in providing care to many of the HHS agencies’ clients and will continue to advocate on their behalf.

Sincerely,

Susan P. Milam, Ph.D., LMSW
Government Relations Director
National Association of Social Workers - Texas Chapter
810 West 11th Street
Austin , Texas 78701
Phone:  512-474-1454
Fax:  512-474-1317
smilam@naswtx.org

Healthy Families and Communities Subcommittee Hearing on Caring for the Vulnerable: The State of Social Work in America

Click here to watch the webcast of the hearing.