At NPR, Alison Kodjak reports on Our Place Day Services, a day center for adults with disabilities, in Slinger, Wisconsin.
"We help men and women become the men and women they were meant to be," says Donna Ellenbecker, director of Our Place.
But she's worried about the Republican plan to overhaul Medicaid.
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All but one of her 33 clients pay for their classes and care at Our Place with Medicaid dollars. Wisconsin's Medicaid system includes a program called IRIS that grants people with disabilities a budget, based on their level of need, to use for services that help them live in the community.
The state's approach is part of a national trend in recent decades to move people with severe developmental disabilities out of institutional settings by providing the support they and their families need to live more independently – either with their families, in community-based group homes or even on their own.
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Ellenbecker worries that if the current Republican plan is passed, or the kinds of budget cuts Trump is proposing go through, the money for those support services just won't be there.
"It's a 25 percent cut you know, and a 25 percent cut it is going to affect these programs," she says. "There's no way that a 25 percent cut can come out of any other program — except long-term care."
That's because many support services are considered optional under the law that governs Medicaid. So, if state lawmakers are forced to choose between say, job coaches, and traditional medical care, the job coaching is likely to lose out.
