KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette Julieanne Steinbacher talks about end of life conversations at the Elder and Special Needs Resource Center in Williamsport.

Programs, such as Home and Community Based Waivers, which are funded by Medicaid for older citizens could be affected if the federal government follows through on cutting Medicaid, according to Julieanne Steinbacher, a certified elder care lawyer with Steinbacher, Goodall and Yurchak.

Speaking at a recent seminar, Steinbacher said that it is her best guess that the federal government is going to cut Medicaid, “and that will affect older people.”

“The money that comes into the states is either going to be a block grant or per capita,” she said.

A block grant means that a person receives so much money and per capita means that this much money is allotted per person.

“Our state is going to have to figure out what they do with that money. There’s only so much money to go around so their only options are to get rid of things that are optional,” Steinbacher said.

“The waivers are optional. I don’t think it’s that anybody’s against the waiver. I just think when we look at it, it’s the thing that’s optional,” she added.

Home and Community Based Waivers allow older individuals to receive care in their homes instead of going to a nursing care facility.

Steinbacher said that she wasn’t prepared when the spending cuts resulted in getting rid of the Office of Community Living.

“That is Meals on Wheels. That is Head Start,” she said.

“They got rid of the sub-agency…so there’s nobody working there. And what they said is that they’re going to take what that office did and divide it up among three different offices,” she said.

Steinbacher said that the hope is that it won’t affect those programs because Congress legislated Meals on Wheels and gave them the money.

“The biggest issue is going to be a break in funding because right now nobody has the job that sends the money to the states,” she said.

“That’s actually a bigger deal than what most people would think because if you don’t have the money and you break off a service, it’s hard to pick it back up sometimes,” she explained.

Although she doesn’t think that Social Security checks will be gotten rid of, Steinbacher contended that the people who understand Cobol are no longer employed by that agency.

The Social Security Administration uses COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) for processing core business functions, such as retirement, disability, and survivor benefits.

“Now they’ve hired young kids, But the problem is that those younger individuals aren’t trained on that software program. We really could have a situation that were to go down and somebody can’t fix it and people wouldn’t get their social security checks,” she said.

Steinbacher urged people to check their bank statements and make sure they get their Social Security checks.

She also stressed that anyone who is in need of a waiver should apply for it now.

“I don’t think the state of Pennsylvania is going to kick off people who are already on benefits. I think they’ll say no to adding more people,” she said, adding that’s her guess about what may happen.

“This isn’t information I’ve gotten on Fox News or MSNBC or CNN. I talked to lobbyists last weekend because it’s something near and dear to my heart. This is what I’ve pledged my life to do,” she said.

“It’s really, really hard because we can’t lose these benefits because it’s a safety net that people rely on,” she said.

She also encouraged anyone with a child with a disability to get them into the system.

“I think the same thing will happen there,” she said.