One Family, Lots of Wheechairs

If Medi-Cal stops providing the items to non-institutionalized adults, this adoptive clan will be hit hard. A dozen, now grown, could be affected.

Sunday Report
July 20, 2003
Tim Reiterman, Times Staff Writer

LOS ALTOS, Calif. — Over the years, state and federal taxpayers bought dozens of wheelchairs for a family that has lived in a rambling ranch-style house with a swimming pool near this lush Silicon Valley enclave.

But the family is not exactly on easy street. Few others will be hit harder if Medi-Cal follows through on the governor's budget proposal to stop providing chairs for adult beneficiaries who are not institutionalized.

"I don't know how they could contemplate doing that," said Jim Forderer, a former teacher who, along with his wife, Marian Aiken, has adopted 27 disabled boys over the last few decades and provided a home to several more.

Now about a dozen are adults whose wheelchair needs are covered at least in part by California's health program for the poor.

One is Ben, a 23-year-old high school graduate whose cerebral palsy leaves him unable to speak or control his arms, let alone walk. When asked why he wants to get a new power wheelchair to replace his battered manual one, he labors for several minutes over his answer.

A small camera on a computer screen mounted in front of his face records the movement of a tiny metallic sticker on his forehead. With halting shifts of his head, he selects letters, one by one. Words slowly materialize on the screen, then he stops and throws his head back with a gleeful smile.

"It would make me independent," he had written, "and I would not be stuck in the house."

State Department of Health Services officials said they were reluctant to propose cutting wheelchairs to help eliminate the state budget shortfall. But Stan Rosenstein, who presides over Medi-Cal as a deputy director, said the items are the most expensive piece of medical equipment that Medi-Cal buys.

"We have a large budget gap to [close], and to get there you have to cut where the money is," he said.

Even though they are of critical importance to the people who need them, wheelchairs are also vulnerable to cuts because they are an optional benefit under federal Medicaid requirements. As long as states have money to pay for chairs, Washington shares the cost. An estimated 5,700 beneficiaries would be affected if the governor's cuts went through.

The Forderer-Aiken house hums with several boys in wheelchairs, one playing a skateboard video game, others talking and teasing, motoring up and down carpeted ramps.
(Page 2 of 2)Ben is the only one not moving. And, if the Medi-Cal cuts go through, he may not be eligible for an electric chair like the ones his younger brothers have.


Kyle, 13, who has no muscles in his trunk or limbs, uses a high-tech chin-operated chair that cost more than $20,000