OCR Text |
Show ATh3 kHatch MlpMpIteportbyw Katie Beckett and home health care All Katie Beckett did was go home. But Katie's homecoming was heralded by a present from the President, a phone call from Mrs. Reagan, and news coverage by countless newspapers and numerous TV stations. Katie, who is three-and-a-half, went home after spending three years in the hospital. Still, it wasn't simply her homecoming that drew all the attention, at-tention, and it wasn't even that she went home at Christmastime; it was how she got home. Katie suffers from the side-effects of viral encephalitis, and her treatment costs thousands of dollars a month. Her parents can't afford to pay that much, so they applied for, and were given, federal health assistance. The problem is, federal regulations require anyone who receives that aid to be in a hospital or rest home. Katie needed the treatment, treat-ment, not the hospitalization, but because her parents needed the assistance, Katie stayed in the hospital for three years. Then President Reagan, playing as great a hero as he ever played on the silver screen, stepped in. He mentioned Katie's case as an example of overly-rigid overly-rigid federal regulations in a November news conference. In the ensuing public clamor, the Department of Health and Human Services exempted Katie from the hospitalization rule, her friends in the hospital threw her a party, and she went home. It's a great story, and it makes a great case against inflexible federal rules. I've heard of similar cases many times before, especially in our committee's com-mittee's work on a bill I introduced that would do for mar.y what President Reagan did for Katie let them go home. Not everyone, of course, can get adequate health care at home. Some need to be hospitalized. But the point of this bill is that those who can stay home people like Katie Beckett will have that option. Numerous witnesses at several Senate hearings spoke of the psychological and physical benefits, particularly to the elderly, of letting patients live at home. Other testimony, offered by health care experts, covered the cost and treatment advantages of home, not institutionalized, health care. The rising number of older people in our society and the fairly constant capacity of our health care institutions also added to the support of the bill. So, too, did Katie Beckett, who looked so cute and happy as she walked with her parents out of the hospital that had been her home for three years. The home health care bill was passed by the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee in December by a 15-1 vote, and it will be next considered by the full Senate. It is the first home health care bill ever to make it to the Senate floor; and, with a lot of work and the continuing support of Katie's friend in the White House, it will become law. |