SAVE COMMUNITY FIRST CHOICE (CFC)-

**CONNECTICUT’S FIRST CHOICE!**

CFC was created 11 years ago because CT’s home and community-based services (HCBS) waivers have long been inadequate; the waivers:
- have limited slots; the legislature has declined to authorize sufficient funding to open up the slots except for the CT home care program for elders (CHCPE) for 65+
- are not an “entitlement” so the state could cap the number of people participating at any time, even if it temporarily increased funding for slots
- have narrower eligibility requirements than CFC, excluding many, such as young adults
- cap the amount of services based on average alternative nursing home costs
- don’t allow for self-directed care (exceptions: DDS, and PCA waiver with 4 year wait list)
CFC has finally allowed CT to make meaningful progress on the official promise in its 2025-2028 Long-Term Care Plan to “rebalance” the provision of care away from institutions
State officials have made contradictory claims that the CFC program, which now has about 7250 enrollees, is being ended because it is “unsustainable” -- and that they will take care of everyone already on the program by transferring them to one of the waivers, so they will not lose any services or hours. This isn’t credible:
- There are not enough slots under the waivers as it is, with some waiting 4,5,10 years or even longer for a slot; the Governor proposes no new money for the waivers just to deal with this backlog, let alone the desperate new people being thrown off of CFC
- Since the Governor proposes no new funding to address the long waiver waiting lists, not all people losing CFC will be able to get services under one of the waivers, and if they are taken first then those waiting years on a waiting list will wait even longer
- Even if the existing waivers were opened up for people on CFC today, this would not help people who don’t currently qualify for any of the waivers or the minority of CFC enrollees who have care plans which exceed the cost caps under the waivers, forcing them into short-staffed nursing homes as the only alternative
State officials have acknowledged they only intend to hold harmless people already on CFC; people who newly suffer a spinal cord or brain injury, or newly develop a neurological condition, will be out of luck—they will wait years for a slot under a waiver or, much more likely, go into a nursing home; each year we will go further backward on “rebalancing”
Forcing people into nursing homes by ending CFC will likely be more costly for the state because care plans under CFC are generally much less expensive than nursing home care, and because CT receives 6% higher federal reimbursement for expenditures under CFC than under waivers