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Redding.com

January 29, 2010

Feisty Redding woman complains to governor about proposed in-home care cuts

Dicy McBee sits in her home in Redding. Dicy and many other seniors could lose the in-home benefits if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger goes ahead with cuts to In-Home Support Services.
Dicy McBee sits in her home in Redding. Dicy and many other seniors could lose the in-home benefits if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger goes ahead with cuts to In-Home Support Services.

By Amanda Winters

Dicy McBee wrote a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding his proposal to cut In-Home Support Services (IHSS).

"I say, my God, governor, have you thought of the consequences?" she begins.

Dicy, who insisted on going by her first name and not giving her age (here's a hint: she's seen the end of five U.S. wars in her lifetime), is originally from Texas, but has lived in Redding since 1977. With a soft Southern drawl, she described how she fell off a horse at age 6 and almost lost her arm as a result.

"We didn't have doctors back then like you do now," she said, describing how her father fought with the doctors who wanted to amputate her arm after blood poisoning set in.

Despite her useless right arm, Dicy went on to become a nurse's aide at a nursing home.

Ironically, that is where many IHSS recipients could end up if their at-home help is taken away, and Dicy couldn't have stronger feelings about that.

"I would die before I'd go into a nursing facility," she said.

The governor is proposing the program be cut to all but the most impaired, which will pare the state caseload from more than 430,000 to about 55,900.

Shasta County would lose 93 percent of its caseload of 2,793, said Shasta County Public Guardian Jim Livingston, leaving only 186 eligible recipients.

"Please do not abandon us," Dicy continued to read from the three lined pages of yellow notebook paper.

Aside from her weak arm, Dicy has two artificial knees, a heart condition that causes her to black out occasionally and poor eyesight, she said.

Her helper does a variety of tasks from laundry to grocery shopping to driving her to doctor's appointments.

"I need somebody to help me and she is that somebody," she said. "She is absolutely wonderful."

On Tuesday, a state Senate Budget Committee began reviewing the cuts, but the benefit to the state's pocketbook relies on the decisions of the beneficiaries and their families.

Dicy said her son, who lives in Hawaii, knows better than to put her in a nursing home.

"I'd hunt him down from the grave and haunt him," she said.

The Legislative Analyst's Office released a report on Jan. 21 that found the state could reduce spending if fewer than a third of the state's beneficiaries ended up in nursing facilities.

But if more than a third are placed in such facilities, costs to the state's Medi-Cal program would increase substantially. The report noted that in 2006-2007, the IHSS cost per person, per year was $10,000, while the state paid $55,000 annually for each person in institutional care.

Livingston said California doesn't have enough skilled nursing homes to absorb the population and he is hopeful the cut won't go through. Last year's cuts are still tied up in lawsuits, he said.

"Advocate groups took the state to court because they didn't like what the state was doing," he said. "You can expect that will happen again if this goes through."

Reporter Amanda Winters can be reached at 225-8372 or awinters@redding.com.