As the Pennsylvania budget impasse enters its second month, the participants are getting weary. While Pennsylvania has not ever in the six years of Gov. Rendell’s administration passed an annual budget on time for July 1, this year — according to at least one commentator — is different.
G. Terry Madonna, professor of public affairs at Franklin & Marshall College and a highly respected political columnist, commented in his July 10 article, “A Different Budget,” that the outbursts are not merely political. “This year,” he says, “no one has to cry wolf because the wolf is really coming,” in Politically Uncorrected, published by Franklin & Marshall. Until a budget is passed, state workers face payless days and calls of Mayor Nutter in Philadelphia for action from the state threaten imminent action.
Still, while the need is real, proposed solutions may not fit. Temporary budget solutions may cause problems later and may not even have the intended effect of saving funds.
With this as background, it is clear that seniors and the chronically disabled need advocates more than ever. As I reported in prior columns, as the commonwealth looks for cash, it looks to further regulate benefits including Medicaid and other resources for the elderly and chronically ill.
A group of lawyers recently formed in Pennsylvania is sounding the alarm on proposed legislation and already making a striking difference. The Pennsylvania Association of Elder Law Attorneys (PAELA), a Pennsylvania sub-chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys was formed as a nonprofit association to “strengthen, train, assist, and support qualified members in order to ensure the development, advancement and promotion of quality legal service for older Americans and to ensure that its members are the pre
mier providers of legal advocacy, guidance, and services to enhance the lives of people as they age and those with special needs” (mission statement, www.paela.info).
The key word here on public policy is advocacy. PAELA alerted members to the Pennsylvania House Bill to expand Medicaid estate recovery which would have seriously affected spouses and families of Medicaid nursing home residents after the resident’s death (Section 1412 of HB 1351). PAELA also latched on to the significance of HB 68, a proposed law to permit direct transfer to the commonwealth of balances in certain bank accounts and CDs if a deceased owner’s estate did not obtain from the commonwealth a certification that he was not on Medicaid.
PAELA’s public policy comments are not merely in opposition to proposed laws but also supportive. PAELA supports laws to set standards on annuity sales to seniors and has taken a position on new Assisted Living Regulations. See www.paela.info. It partners with other organizations with similar interests including the Pennsylvania Chapter of AARP and the Alzheimer’s Association on specific legislation. Most of its members are also members of the Pennsylvania Bar Association Elder Law Section.
With fewer than 200 attorney members statewide, it has a reach far beyond its numbers.
I have to admit that, when I first received notice of formation of the group, my thought was how could I handle membership along with all of the others.
In order to practice elder law in a knowledgeable way, it really is necessary to keep up with the field at every level on a daily basis. What I found this to mean in my case was, on the national level, membership in the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, and the Life Care Planning Law Firms Association, and becoming a charter member of the Academy of Special Needs Planners. Statewide, this meant membership in the Pennsylvania Bar Association Elder Law and Real Property, Probate and Trust Sections, and locally, membership in the Elder Law Section of the Chester County Bar Association. Each of these organizations in its own way provides critical information used by me every day in decision making for elderly and chronically ill clients. Most of these memberships have listservs with daily postings. Sometimes I receive more than 100 e-mails a day with information on everything from family agreements in Pennsylvania to advance review of the new health care reform legislation before it has left the U.S. House of Representatives to banking regulations to new cases and laws or health care regulations. To all of this I added PAELA because of its advocacy.
In tough times, frail seniors, their families and the disabled community need lobbyists to alert them to what is going on and to take a stand. I came to realize that being an advocate is really being an unpaid lobbyist. It is not good enough to react. We have to bring about the right kind of change.
Janet Colliton is a West Chester attorney whose practice is limited to elder law, Medicare, Medicaid, life care, and special-needs planning and estate planning and administration. She is principal of Colliton Law Associates PC and, with Jeffrey Jones, Certified Senior Advisor, of Life Transition Services LLC. She may be contacted at 790 E. Market St, Suite 250, West Chester, PA 19382; or to 610-436-6674 or e-mail at [email protected].
