VIA WSJ.com

By PHILIP SHISHKIN

Faced with widening budget shortfalls, several states are rolling back support services for the elderly and disabled. The move is making it tougher for them to continue living on their own, advocates say.

At least 15 states, including Alabama, Virginia and Massachusetts, are targeting such funding, mostly for programs that allow low-income shut-ins to receive personal care — like cooking, cleaning and basic health services — in their own homes, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning Washington, D.C. think tank that studies state budgets.

The cutbacks are exacerbating the already long waiting lists for home-care support services in many states. That leaves the low-income elderly and disabled to dip into their meager incomes to hire their own help, reach out to family or charity, or seek more restrictive and expensive care in a nursing home, advocates say.

“We are beginning to see serious cuts and we are expecting those cuts to get worse,” says JoAnn Lamphere, director of state government relations at AARP, an advocacy group for the elderly.

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