AUGUSTA – For many aging Mainers or their loved ones, the transition from self-sufficiency to dependency can be both intimidating and costly.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, would help ease the process by keeping people in their homes longer and increasing elderly support services statewide. It would also save the state money in the long term, by streamlining elderly care services and reducing the number of MaineCare recipients receiving nursing home care.

With an estimated annual cost of $1 million, the price tag threatens to put its passage in jeopardy, given the already overwhelmed state budget.

But Craven said the upfront costs would be paid back in the long term and recent research supports her.

“It’s just so necessary because we can’t afford to continue to pay the costs that are required in institutions or nursing homes,” Craven said. “People should be able to live on their own, based on resources in the community, rather than using up all their money in a very short time in a nursing home and then having to be on MaineCare.”

The bill calls for three separate areas of annual funding: $300,000 would be distributed to the state’s five area agencies on aging, $200,000 would help provide equipment to family members taking care of their elderly or disabled relatives and $500,000 toward volunteer services, such as Meals-on-Wheels.

Expansion of home- and community-based services requires a short-term increase in spending, followed by a reduction in state spending, resulting in long-term cost savings, according to an article in the most recent Health Affairs, a leading health policy journal. Research on long-term health care spending from 1995 to 2005 revealed that states with strong home- and community-based care infrastructure saw “much less” spending growth than states with weak services, according to the journal.

Graham Newson, executive director of the Maine Association of Area Agencies on Aging, said the state’s five area agencies help seniors negotiate already available community programs and Medicare services. The combined $800,000 that would be spent on the agencies and the services they help direct people toward would have a direct impact on peoples’ quality of life, he said.

The additional $200,000 would revive a recently lapsed program that provided grants of up to $1,000 per family for equipment needed to care for an elderly or disabled loved one in the home.

“For example, a family needed a chair lift to keep their mother at home because the bathroom and the bedroom were on the second floor of the house,” said Brenda Gallant, executive director of the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman. “So they were given $1,000 and they bought a used chair lift at a reduced cost. This enabled this elderly person to remain at home, as opposed to entering a nursing home.”

The average cost of providing home care for an individual is about $9,000 annually, compared to about $28,000 of state spending for nursing home care each year, Gallant said.

The bill is scheduled for a public hearing before the Health and Human Services Committee on March 3.

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