Western PA ADAPT

Members from ADAPT Chapters in Western Pennsylvania and advocates from West Virginia visited Senator Jay Rockefeller’s main district office in Charleston, WV on August 25, 2009 to demand real choice in health care reform. Senator Rockefeller is a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health Care.

The Senator was not present at his office, but the activists were able to meet with two of his top aides regarding health care reform. The message conveyed was that any health care reform package would be incomplete without including real choice for people with disabilities to live in their own homes, rather than having to live in a nursing home or other institution.

The vehicle for enabling this choice already exists in the Community Choice Act (CCA). On March 24, 2009 Representative Danny Davis (D-IL) [H.R. 1670] and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) [S. 683] introduced the Community Choice Act in Congress. 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.

President Obama wants to “make health care more affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices and keeping insurance companies honest.” It is a fact that home and community-based services cost about 1/3 of what it costs to keep someone in a nursing home for a year and provide “choice” for our most vulnerable citizens.

Senator Rockefeller’s staff members were educated on the facts about CCA. They were asked to set up a meeting between Senator Rockefeller and concerned constituents. His staff members said that they would make sure that the Senator received information about CCA and would be told about the meeting request.

The ADAPT members requested that they be given a signed letter stating that a meeting with the Senator and/or his health care aide(s) would be scheduled within 30 days. The staff members said that they could not do this. After some negotiation, the ADAPT members were able to get a memo style document, with no signature, stating that a meeting might be set up  after possible scheduling dates were provided by the West Virginia constituents.

Western PA ADAPT feels that the Senator’s staff members were being noncommittal and should have been forced to set up a meeting while the ADAPT members were there. Unfortunately, several factors worked against accomplishing this goal.

Some redemption was realized when a TV crew from the Charleston ABC/Fox affiliate accepted an invitation to cover the action. This coverage at least enabled the message about CCA to get out to constituents in the Senator’s home district. This report was later broadcast to the local audience.

Currently, the Community Choice Act is not included in any of the various versions of the health care reform bill.  Also, Senator Rockefeller is currently not a cosponsor of the Community Choice Act.

YOU CAN HELP! Contact Senator Rockefeller and demand that the Community Choice Act be included in health care reform. Also request that he sign onto the bill as a cosponsor immediately:

http://rockefeller.senate.gov/contact/

You can view pictures of this action in Western PA ADAPT’s Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=99551317361#/photo_search.php?oid=99551317361&view=all

Note: More local ADAPT actions will be commenced in the coming weeks.

Fifteen plus people with disabilities, many using wheelchairs and other mobility aids, from ADAPT Chapters in Western Pennsylvania gathered at Senator Elder Vogel’s New Castle, PA office today (August 14, 2009) to demand that any approved state budget must FUND PEOPLE FIRST.

The ADAPT members demanded that any approved budget needs to at least maintain current funding for vital human service programs.

The Pennsylvania State Government continues to use the disabled community as a political pawn. Although times are tough, cutting vital human service programs as is fiscally and morally irresponsible. The plain truth of the matter is that receiving these services is a matter of life and death to some disabled Pennsylvanians.

After blocking Senator Vogel’s office for about an hour and protesting outside on the street, ADAPT members succeeded in getting him to schedule an August 19th meeting to discuss budget issues.

How do you spell power? ADAPT!

Note: More local ADAPT actions will be commenced in the coming weeks.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted 195-3 to pass Senate Bill 850 yesterday afternoon. As written, S.B. 850 would make deep cuts to key programs would force more disabled people out of their homes and into nursing homes. The $27 billion budget now goes to Governor Rendell, who is expected to line-item veto all but the items essential for the Commonwealth to pay it’s employees and vendors. Rendell stated during a news conference that he will sign this “stopgap” budget this morning, August 5.

The stopgap action doesn’t solve the bitter partisan impasse that has left Pennsylvania without a budget for more than one month. Pennsylvania is broke. The effects of the recession are expected to push Pennsylvania’s budget shortfall to $3.2 billion in the current fiscal year. The continuing budget impasse magnifies the threat of substantial cuts to funding for severely disabled adults in Attendant Care and other community based programs without an increase in state revenues.

You Can Help!

Contact Governor Rendell, remind him to veto the lines that do harm to home and community based services, and ask him to take care of our disabled citizens in the final budget.

Phone: (717) 787-2500
Fax: (717) 772-8284
E-mail the Governor’s Office (Link opens in a new window)

by Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica – July 30, 2009

President Obama signed a measure last week recognizing the rights of people with disabilities around the world. The United Nations Convention Proclamation on the Rights of People with Disabilities calls for equality in access to public services, medical care and other services.

It also called for the right for people to choose where they live: “To recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others.”

Yet in the United States, many people with disabilities do not have that choice.

We reported in June that thousands of people nationwide want to live on their own, but instead remain in nursing homes, rehabilitation centers or state hospitals, often at a higher cost to taxpayers because of a historic bias toward institutional care. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that funding services for Medicaid recipients who live in institutions — and not those who live in the community — violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“Signing a U.N. Convention proclamation doesn’t give anybody freedom,” said Bruce Darling, a disability activist with ADAPT from Rochester. “We are still forcing people to live in nursing homes.”

Disability groups have pushed for legislation, such as the proposed Community Choice Act, which would allow people with disabilities to stay at home. Medicaid guarantees service in a nursing home for those who need that level of care, but similar services in the community are optional.

Measures have been introduced in Congress for several years that would allow people to choose where they want services. When President Obama was in the Senate, he co-sponsored such legislation. But since he has been in the White House, Obama has not said he will support moves to make community services mandatory.

In June, Obama called for increased spending on independent living services and directed HUD to provide vouchers to individuals trying to move out of institutions.

A White House spokesman told ProPublica “the President believes that investing in health and long-term services for people with disabilities is an important national priority,” but would not say whether the President will support legislation to make community services mandatory.

“Ultimately this becomes a bureaucratic conversation about spending health care dollars,” activist Darling said. “And we completely lose the concept that this is a civil rights issue for Americans. No other group gets locked up like this. No one would stand for it.”