When Congressional leaders introduced health care reform legislation earlier this summer, long-term care was largely missing. Now advocates are using a new tack to push expanded community-based care into the legislation.
In a meeting with President Barack Obama last Friday, a dozen leaders from the disability community asked the president to make the Community Choice Act a state option within the health care reform bill rather than a mandate.
As initially introduced, the Community Choice Act would mandate that states offer people with disabilities the option to use Medicaid funding to pay for community-based rather than institutional care. Making the legislation a state option, however, would mean that states could choose, but would not be required to enact the principles of the legislation without needing approval from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We’d rather have the Community Choice Act as a whole (with the mandate),” said Marty Ford, chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, who attended the White House meeting. “But the political reality is that we want to get something so that at least those states that are ready to implement this can go forward.”
Currently, the Community Choice Act is not included in the Senate or House versions of the health care reform bill.
Obama told the group that he would ask members of his health care reform team to meet with them to further discuss the issue in the coming weeks.
It is my understanding that ADAPT was not represented at the meeting with President Obama where this offer to compromise on the Community Choice Act was proffered by those representing the disability community. If that is so, I hope that the group consulted ADAPT and got its consent before suggesting the compromise since ADAPT has been the driving force behind the bill and its members are the only ones to put themselves at personal risk in advancing it.
All too often, those who claim the right to speak for us actually make their living serving us and their interests and ours conflict on key issues. This point is lost on decision-makers like Obama who are unaware of the struggle of people with disabilities to articulate our point of view on the policies that affect us. We must teach those decision-makers how to recognize our voices and seek us out for our advice on those matters.
You can not speak for the disabled community. Once again, people with disabilities are being sold down the river!
The militants at ADAPT, such as those who chain themselves to the White House gate, may finally be losing their access in DC. My child has extremely severe intellectual disabilities, and ADAPT in no way represents him or me.
As I mentioned on the phone last week, I believe you have your facts wrong about the meeting at the White House. The suggestion of a state plan option was not raised by disability groups as something new (or any proposal for a “compromise”) at that meeting. It originated with Congress as a suggestion that a state plan option (rather than full civil rights/elimination of the institutional bias) may be all they are willing to consider in the current negotiations around health care reform. While the disability community would not reject this type of measure should it actually make it into writing and be passed, such an option is but one small step forward and would not deter us from continuing to fight for the elimination of the Medicaid institutional bias, our full civil rights, and first-class citizenship in America.
While I know you relied on something you read for your information, next time please consider fact-checking with someone who actually attended because the misrepresentation in your article (albeit unintentional) has started a backlash against groups like CCD (people assume only provider groups CCD could come up with such a suggested compromise), and a misunderstanding of the position of groups like ADAPT.
While Republican Rule doesn’t feel that ADAPT represents him/her or his/her child, disability issues cross over both sides of the aisle. There are many people with developmental disabilities and many developmental disability organizations that are part of ADAPT, as well as people with a variety of different political party affiliations, ages, races, religions, ethnic backgrounds, etc.
Many people in ADAPT live on less than $700/mo and don’t have the money or powerful positions to buy influence in D.C. Therefore direct action is a way to both garner media attention, and to make sure that people with disabilities are at the tables where decisions about our lives are made. Nothing About Us Without Us. All we want is for all people with all disabilities to have the same freedom to live in the community that Republican Rule(and hopefully his/her son) have.
Not so much to ask/expect in America.
adaptmt…I assume by your login that you’re part of ADAPT. If so, I can honestly say that your posting was the most positive and collaborative commentary I’ve ever seen offered by anyone from that organization.
My concern with ADAPT is the monocular positions they often take, and their bias in favor of higher functioning citizens. For what it’s worth, I have the same problem with The Arc and other disability organizations as well.
As far as “direct actions” are concerned, immature actions do not garner an invitation to the table. Perhaps that is why ADAPT was not invited to the President’s meeting, given the chain-gang incident and inflamatory statements afterward.
Nonetheless, I appreciate your reply.