The Nation : Elderly Illegally Denied Home Care Funds, Judge Finds

A federal judge ruled that the Reagan Administration is illegally denying Medicare benefits to hundreds and possibly thousands of elderly people who need daily home health care. U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin, accusing the Department of Health and Human Services of “insensitive and improper tactics,” struck down a 1986 regulation that limits Medicare reimbursement to four visits per week by nurses or health aides because he found the definition of “part-time and intermittent” care to be erroneous. The judge ordered HHS to reopen all claims for home health care that were denied on that basis since the lawsuit was filed Feb. 17, 1987. Robert Hardy, a spokesman for the Health Care Financing Administration, an HHS unit that operates Medicare, said: “We haven’t read the opinion, but we believe that HCFA is properly administering the home health benefit.”