The Holes in Virginia’s Health Care Funding

Some leaders in Richmond say Virginia has a big budget “surplus”.

I think that obscures just how far behind we are in funding health care.

• In 2012, the US Department of Justice found Virginia in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act for failing to provide adequate services to Virginians with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Ten years later, we still have 13,000 residents waiting.
• For nearly 20 years, the General Assembly has failed to fund minimum staffing standards for nursing homes, which now face critical shortages.
• Virginia made huge strides in 2019 by expanding Medicaid coverage to 600,000+ patients, but many still can’t get the care they need because the state pays providers too little. I hear it every day from local dentists, home care aides, and residents with disabilities.
• Virginia’s behavioral health system is overstretched, too. Just last week Giles County sued the state for denying a child admission to a psychiatric hospital that only has staff for a third of its beds.

Photo: by OnlineMarketing, July 30 2018, Unsplash License

We have to meet these basic needs for all Virginians, and that means training, retaining, and empowering the extraordinary health care providers who make it possible.

The House and Senate budgets make some meaningful investments, and you can see the major health care measures here. In short, the House budget offers more targeted funding for developmental disabilities, while the Senate version is typically more generous across the board. Virginians deserve the best of both.

Though I’m frustrated Richmond continues to neglect these needs — and I’ll keep working to rally support — I’m proud of a few health care achievements this session:

• I worked with hospitals statewide to pass a bill protecting patients from predatory debt collectors. UVA Health has made important progress in ending aggressive debt collection, and it’s time for hospitals across Virginia to do the same.
• We also protected abortion care by blocking bills that would ban abortion and impose unnecessary waiting periods on patients. With states across the country imposing life-threatening restrictions, it’s all the more urgent that Virginia stays a safe haven for abortion.

Though I wish we were making more progress, some days protecting our past gains is a full-time job all its own.