The invisible value of a wheelchair for those who don't need one, it's easy to see it as a piece of equipment or a convenience.

But for individuals with disabilities, wheelchair hours are a lifeline to their independence.

Yet a loophole in New Jersey's health insurance laws have been blocking people in need of motorized wheelchairs from getting them.

Specifically, if they live in a nursing home.

As Raven Santana reports, a bill moving through Trenton would finally close that gap and the lack of accessibility it's caused.

Yes, generally, yes.

The Village Voice has amended.

The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee unanimously voted in favor of advancing legislation that would require Medicaid coverage of motorized wheelchairs for nursing facility residents.

One of the bill's sponsors, Senator Rene Burgess, says passing this bill is a game changer for those who rely on their wheelchair for independence.

To clear my mom been in long term nursing facility so I know how it is to fill independence when you when you have someone has been independent all their life.

Currently in New Jersey, Medicaid typically covers a cost for a motorized wheelchair for patients who are prescribed one.

But there's just one problem for residents of nursing facilities.

That decision is made at the discretion of the facility.

It's a loophole this bill aims to fix.

Senate Bill 3438.

What it does is it requires to cease managed care organizations to provide a power wheelchair to a nursing home resident simply if it is prescribed by their doctor.

Why would you need something else if you if you have a prescription for it?

Why should there be some private company standing in the way between you, your health, and what your doctor has prescribed you?

Jonathan Sigsworth is the president and CEO of More Than Walking, a nonprofit serving people with disabilities and spinal cord injuries.

Sigsworth started the nonprofit after becoming paralyzed below his arms after he fell off a 70 foot cliff in northern India.

19 years ago.

Unfortunately, he says, for so many of those who rely on wheelchairs for independence and freedom, that also means a hefty price tag.

You know, the cost of a power wheelchair is maybe 30 to $40000 or more.

The cost of a of a lightweight manual chair can be, you know, 5 to 6 or more thousand dollars.

I mean, these are lightweight titanium chairs, lightweight aluminum chairs and the maintenance required to maintain them.

It also costs money.

So we cannot afford these out of pocket.

We cannot afford to maintain these out of pocket.

So we rely on our insurance to deliver our chairs and the repairs to those chairs when we need them.

I want to go a little further than just a courtyard or the hallways.

I want to get out into the community.

Our chair would let me do that, and I've been waiting three and a half years to do that.

I've only been in the outside world once on a field trip to a Chinese restaurant sponsored by a listed carrier.

So three and a half years and I'm not going to sit remarking on Park Face outside.

I'm very anxious to get my life going.

Larry Lindstrom has had his motorized wheelchair for six months.

He became paralyzed from the chest down after he was involved in a car accident in May of 2021.

Lindstrom says before he got approval for the power chair, he was sometimes stranded in his room because he had to rely on nursing facility staff to push him around.

While he is happy to have finally received his motorized wheelchair, he doesn't want anyone to go through what he did, which is why he says this legislation needs to pass.

And this legislation doesn't pass.

It interrupts that whole chain.

And I don't want to see people spending another three years virtually impaired like I did.

The bill was advanced in an 8 to 0 vote and now moves to the Budget and Appropriations Committee.

For NJ Spotlight News I'm Raven Santana.