Cottonwood Inc. will ask Douglas County commissioners today for support in its quest to exclude people with intellectual and developmental disabilities from the state’s plan to privatize Medicaid.

This year, Cottonwood received $654,400 in funding from the county.

“When there are changes at the state level, it often falls back on the counties to have to pick up some of the slack,” said Sharon Spratt, chief executive officer of Cottonwood Inc. So she will ask commissioners to approve a resolution at their meeting today.

Under Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed KanCare plan, the state will pay three for-profit companies to operate a managed care system. The system is designed to serve 383,000 low-income elderly, disabled and low-income families and children. Of those, 8,193 have developmental disabilities.

Managed care systems focus on preventive health care and getting patients the right medical services at the right time, Spratt said. But the Medicaid services provided to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are for long-term care to allow them to live and work in the community.

“Our services don’t fit with the medical side of managed care,” Spratt said.

While the Brownback administration has given verbal assurances that case managers will remain with clients under KanCare, Spratt worries that their roles could change.

“We’ve worked for 40 years to have folks with developmental disabilities be seen as regular folks who are not sick,” Spratt said. “This seems like it kind of puts it back in that category.”