Brad Linnenkamp is finding it harder to live with his cerebral palsy after being dropped from a Medicaid waiver program.

The program paid for an attendant to help Linnenkamp, 36, buy groceries, do laundry and clean his apartment. Now he’s forced to pay for the service himself.

“Basically, I pretty much am continuing working with the same person,” Linnenkamp said. “I am paying her out of my pocket, though. She was working 11 hours a week, and now it’s only six hours.”

Recent budget cuts forced the Kansas Legislature to cut funding to many of Medicaid’s waiver programs in order to meet the $26.6 million budget cut that former Gov. Bill Graves issued to the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. About 300 people in Kansas lost their coverage after Jan. 31, said Tanya Dorf, special assistant to the deputy secretary of health care policy of SRS. The cut is an effort to save $335,000 between Feb. 1 and June 30.

By decreasing the hours his attendant comes to help him, Linnenkamp was able to afford the much-needed help. He also received a raise at his job and is working 25 hours a week.

“I agreed to keep paying her at the same hourly rate of $9.50, so then I went down to only six hours a week,” Linnenkamp said. “I pay her $114 every two weeks.”

Linnenkamp’s attendant remains committed.

“I’m still trying to do what I’ve been doing,” said Brenda Allen, Linnenkamp’s attendant. “There’s no one else to do it, and I just can’t stop.”

Brad Linnenkamp uses voice recognition software to write a letter on his computer. Linnenkamp, who has cerebral palsy, was dropped from a Medicaid waiver program that paid an attendant to help him with household tasks.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius plans to restore most services in fiscal year 2004, which begins July 1. The state offered those who lost service for the interim period the opportunity to remain on waiting lists for the programs so that when the next fiscal year begins they will not have to reapply for the waiting list. This does not help Linnenkamp, though.

Since Linnenkamp’s score for disability was only a 17, he will not be able to regain his benefits. Those with scores between 16 and 25 will not be eligible for attendants any longer, and new applicants must have a score of 30 or higher to get into the program. Those that have a score between 26 and 30 will be “grandfathered in.”

“They always say you can look around and see someone else that is worse off, and you can,” Allen said. “But it’s hard to see things like this taken from him, and I try to make things easier for him. He has enough struggle as it is, and when they take this away from him … it’s really hard.”

During the six hours that Allen spends helping Linnenkamp, she splits her time between doing laundry and cleaning. When the weather is bad, she also does his grocery shopping. He buys a monthly bus pass during the winter, and the bus picks him up at his apartment and takes him to work. When the weather is nice, he is able to use his three-wheel scooter to drive to work or go out to eat.

“It’s made him real apprehensive about what will happen to him and what will happen if things change,” Allen said.