Some Pennsylvania senior citizens who get home health care at the state's expense are going to have to help foot the bill.

Officials said, about 10,000 of the 27,000 seniors in the state Department of Aging's Options program will be affected.

Seniors who have a monthly net income of $1,635 or more or assets totaling more than $2,000 will have to pay a percentage of their care cost, also known as cost-sharing, said Sam Bellich, deputy director of Mercer County Area Agency on Aging.

The change is supposed to help reduce the waiting list of people who need services. At the end of last year about 4,400 people statewide were on a waiting list, according to officials.

About 63 percent of Options recipients have incomes of less than $923 a month and will not be required to pay, according to the state.

"The whole goal is to offer more services to more people," Bellich said. "Cost-sharing is an attempt to have the consumer and the state bear portions of what the cost is."

Money for the Options program comes from the Pennsylvania Lottery, said Larissa Johnson, agency spokeswoman. She said the cost-sharing money will be funneled back into the program.

"The most important thing to note is we will be able to serve more people that weren't able to receive the services they needed before," she said.

The Options program has been around for 25 years and about 50 seniors in Mercer County take advantage of it, Bellich said.

The Options program, which is administered through the Agency on Aging, is open to Pennsylvanians who are at least 60 years old and have some mental or physical frailty, officials said.

Once seniors hit the program's limit of $500 a month in care costs, they move into the state's newly created Bridge program to receive the same services. Seniors also are required to pay for some of the cost of that program, officials said.

Mercer County is looking to put 10 people into the Bridge program between now and July, Bellich said.

The Bridge program offers people in need of nursing care a choice if they want to remain in their own homes or community, officials said.

"The idea is to take people with money and allow them to spend their money, along with money expended by (the state), in order to provide for them at home," Bellich said.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Larissa Theodore at ltheodore@sharon-herald.com