ANCOR Issues Statement on House Energy & Commerce Committee’s Proposed Investment in HCBS

ALEXANDRIA, VA. – Today, ANCOR CEO Barbara Merrill issued the following statement in response to the news that the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s budget proposal will include a $190 billion investment—less than half the amount proposed by President Biden and Senate Democrats—in Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS).

“Although decades of underinvestment in the Medicaid HCBS program make us grateful to see any allocation of resources to support community-based disability services and thankful for legislators who see these services as a priority, we were disheartened to learn that the House Energy & Commerce Committee is proposing to invest only $190 billion in HCBS in the Committee’s response to the Senate’s budget resolution.

“Indeed, $190 billion is not an insignificant amount of money, but it falls woefully short of the $400 billion proposed by President Biden in his Build Back Better agenda and approved by the Senate in the budget resolution it passed prior to the August recess.

“If our elected officials are to take seriously the need to overcome a decades-long direct care workforce crisis and support people with disabilities to bounce back from the perilous effects of the pandemic, it is absolutely essential that Congress approve the full $400 billion originally proposed for the Medicaid HCBS program. We know that legislators who care about their most vulnerable constituents will do the right thing and continue to push for the largest amount of funding possible to ensure that community-based services won’t continue to languish.

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For more than 50 years, the American Network of Community Options and Resources (ancor.org) has been a leading advocate for the critical role service providers play in enriching the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). As a national nonprofit trade association, ANCOR represents 1,600+ organizations employing more than a half-million professionals who together serve more than a million individuals with I/DD. Our mission is to advance the ability of our members to support people with I/DD to fully participate in their communities.