Wanted for Crimes Against the Disabled Community – The Harrisburg Gang of 30

August 4th, 2009
The Harrisburg Gang of 30

The Harrisburg Gang of 30

The 30 Pennsylvania Republican Senators listed below continue to use the disabled community as political pawns. These Pennsylvania Senators are hard set on making deep cuts to key programs that would force more disabled people out of their homes and into nursing homes.

Western PA ADAPT accuses these Senators of crimes against the disabled community. Cutting vital human service programs 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.

Go to the Web sites of these Pennsylvania Senators and visit, write, call or E-mail them. Let them know that you want them to make sure that any approved state budget must FUND PEOPLE FIRST.

Western PA ADAPT is the local chapter of a National Grassroots Disability Rights organization. ADAPT fights so people with disabilities can live in the community with real supports instead of being locked away in nursing homes and other institutions.

(Senators marked with an * above represent districts in Western Pennsylvania covered by Western PA ADAPT, ADAPT of Erie, PA, and Southwestern PA ADAPT.)

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Obama Hedges on Mandatory Community Services

August 3rd, 2009

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.”

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Isn’t Health Care Reform About Lowering Costs?

July 29th, 2009

President Obama says that rising health care costs are an imminent threat to our economy and that any reform must reduce these long-term costs. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets.

Obama wants to “make health care more affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices and keeping insurance companies honest.”

“Choice” is a big part of the proposed health care reform plan. It just so happens that an important bill that has been introduced in both Congress and Senate also includes that word. On March 24, 2009 Representative Danny Davis and Senator Tom Harkin introduced the Community Choice Act (CCA) in Congress.

The Community Choice Act would allow Medicaid-eligible Americans with significant disabilities the choice of living in their community, rather than having to live in a nursing home or other institution.

Chances of the CCA bills successfully making their way through Congress on their own are slim. Chances of including CCA in health care reform are probably even slimmer. The Obama administration has refused to even consider including it in any health care reform plan.

According to Obama, health care reform is about improving choice and lowering costs. Why can’t Obama and Congress see the trees through the forest?

About 1.7 million elderly and disabled people receive care in approximately 17,000 nursing homes across the United States. Anywhere from 10-40% of these people do not need to live there according to the 2006 book “Aging” by Harry R. Moody.

It costs approximately $67,000 per year to keep a person in a nursing home. On the other hand, home and community based services only costs about $21,000 per year. If 10% of 1.7 million nursing home residents could choose to live at home, it would save taxpayers approximately $8 billion a year. If 40% of these people could choose to live at home it would save about $31 billion a year.

You’d have to be foolish to not see that any health care reform package is incomplete if it does not include the Community Choice Act.

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Less Expensive In-Home Care Best Option for Disabled and Budget

July 28th, 2009

The budget cuts proposed by both the Pennsylvania Senate and House Republicans would have a devastating impact on our most vulnerable citizens; disabled individuals who, in a time of national recession, need more help from us than ever. Disabled people who rely on home and community based services and the attendants who help them live on their own should not have to lose their services and be forced to live in a nursing home during what some in Harrisburg refer to as “a tough budget year.”

In “a tough budget year,” or any year for that matter, it clearly makes sense to pass a budget that will save taxpayer money and maintain revenue streams by keeping people working who pay taxes.

“Any budget cut to services for the disabled will result in fewer people with disabilities and family members being able to work and pay taxes, and more people will be institutionalized at a much higher taxpayer expense. We want the in-home assistance we need to live productive lives,” says Linda Anthony, Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. “Delivering those same services in our homes is typically less than half the cost of placing a person in an institutional care facility. Limiting our options is morally wrong and fiscally irresponsible.”

Pennsylvania’s final budget must include at least the amounts that the Governor originally recommended in February 09 for mental retardation, autism, attendant care, services to people with disabilities and long term care — and at least level funding for other key programs. There should be no budget cuts to the mental health system and the $3 million decrease recommended by the Governor should be restored.

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An Open Letter to Governor Rendell

July 10th, 2009

Governor Edward G. Rendell
225 Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120

July 10, 2009

Governor Rendell,

We’re greatly disappointed that Senate Bill 850 may yet be passed by the House. It’s fairly evident that passage of this bill would be a political ploy to convince Republicans that a broad-based tax increase is necessary.

We’re appalled that our state government continues to use the disabled community as a political pawn. How can our political officials even consider using our people as a negotiating tool?

Although times are tough, cutting vital human service programs as proposed in the Bill 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.

Please make sure that the 2009 Pennsylvania budget funds people first. Any approved budget needs to at least maintain current funding for these vital human service programs.

Sincerely,

Western PA ADAPT
Phone: 724-652-5144
Fax: 724-652-5158

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Cutting Vital Programs is Not the Answer

July 9th, 2009

With the 2009 Pennsylvania Budget still up in the air, rumors are still flying that deep cuts to services and programs for the disabled are still a possibility. Although times are tough, cutting vital programs is fiscally and morally irresponsible.

Tell the Governor to fund people first.

Please call the Governor’s office at (717) 787-2500 and give him the following message:

“I’m calling to ask the Governor to fund people first in the 2009 budget. Cutting home and community based services and/or Act 150 would be fiscally and morally irresponsible. Additionally, cutting Act 150 violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision giving people with disabilities the choice to live independently.”

“The Governor needs to make sure that the 2009 Pennsylvania budget funds people first. Any approved budget needs to at least maintain current funding for disabled programs.”

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Obama Administration Continues Institutional Bias in Healthcare Reform

July 8th, 2009

The nation’s largest grassroots disability rights organization, ADAPT, expressed outrage today at the Obama administration’s selective endorsement of one piece of proposed long term care legislation while refusing to support a companion measure aimed at eliminating the institutional bias in Medicaid for aging or disabled lower income people that Obama, with strong support from over 80 national disability and aging organizations, co-sponsored as a Senator.

On July 6, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, sent a letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy, Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, expressing President Obama’s support for Kennedy’s “CLASS Act,” which would allow middle class Americans to set aside money from their paychecks in anticipation of the expenses they will likely face for long-term services and supports as they age, or acquire a disability. After paying into the fund for at least 5 years, workers or their non-working spouses could draw on the fund for long-term services and assistance, either in a nursing home or in the community. Workers who wish could opt out of the program, an outcome more likely in tough economic times or in cases where low worker-wages barely cover individual or family survival expenses.

“Those of us with disabilities, who are aging, and who aren’t able to work are outraged that the President has issued public support for this primarily middle class legislation, and has completely ignored the companion legislation that would include lower income disabled and older people in reform of long term services and supports, and health care reform,” said Bob Kafka, Texas ADAPT Organizer. “It’s like we don’t exist!”

ADAPT and a multitude of other national disability and aging organizations in Washington have gone on record in support of Sen. Kennedy’s CLASS Act only if it is paired with a “fix” for Medicaid addressing lower income and non-working people, similar to provisions contained in the Community Choice Act (CCA). CCA inserts the concept of “personal choice” into the law, adding language that mandates states to pay for help in a person’s own home the same way the law mandates them to pay for nursing homes. Current law can force people with disabilities and who are aging into nursing homes in order to receive services that can just as easily be delivered in the community. Research has demonstrated that community-based assistance is almost always less expensive.

“When President Obama was a senator, he co-sponsored CCA,” said Dawn Russell, ADAPT Organizer from Denver Colorado, “and when he campaigned for the Presidency, he pledged to support CCA. But since he was elected, and we met with his people at the White House they told us that he will not include long term services and supports in health care reform. When we heard that, we expressed our disappointment and anger in a peaceful protest outside the White House. The President responded by having us arrested, and there were very heavy fines levied against us. It feels like the President is trying to intimidate and silence us so we won’t speak up for people with disabilities, people with low incomes, and those who are aging who are at risk of being forced into nursing homes under the current law.”

Because the CLASS Act does not address the Medicaid “institutional bias,” people who use up the benefits they save under the act will still face having to move to nursing homes to keep getting assistance, unless they can afford to stay in their own homes because of other resources they have.

“When I voted last November, I was sure I was voting for a great man who would bring freedom to people with disabilities,” said Bruce Darling, ADAPT Organizer from New York. “Just as President Lincoln freed the slaves, I felt that President Obama would free those of us with disabilities from the continued threat of incarceration in a nursing homes and institutions. Now, I feel like a fool, because this administration apparently cares nothing for us and has no respect for our freedom and our civil rights.”

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Pennsylvania and the Olmstead Decision

July 7th, 2009

June 22, 2009 marked the tenth anniversary of the day that the United States Supreme Court held in Olmstead v. L.C. that the unnecessary segregation of individuals with disabilities in institutions may constitute discrimination based on disability. The court ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires states to provide community-based services rather than institutional placements for individuals with disabilities.

In a 6-3 opinion the court said that “unjustified isolation of individuals with disabilities is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability.” The Olmstead ruling provides an important clarification about how states should comply with Title II of the ADA. The Olmstead decision confirmed that states must ensure that Medicaid-eligible persons do not experience discrimination by being institutionalized when they could be served in a more integrated setting. This obligation is sometimes known as the ADA ‘integration mandate’.

The ‘integration mandate’ of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires public agencies to provide services “in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities.”

The Supreme Court mandated that states must develop their plans for integrating institutionalized people into the community in collaboration with people with disabilities.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has failed to comply with this ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States. Pennsylvania still does not have a comprehensive plan ten years after the Olmstead decision was handed down. This failure to act has violated the rights of those disabled individuals who wish to leave segregated settings and to be included in their communities.

Pennsylvania needs to promptly develop and implement an Olmstead plan. Let your legislators know that Pennsylvania needs to show how, who, and when people will be moved out of institutions:

http://www.disabilityoptionsnetwork.org/stategovernment.php

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Fund People First

June 17th, 2009

Members of Pennsylvania ADAPT called on the Pennsylvania Legislature on June 11 to fund  people first. ADAPT rallied to demand that legislators preserve investments in vital services that impact the lives of disabled Pennsylvanians. ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action,  including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.

Last month, the state Senate passed a budget bill that would have made deep cuts to education, health care, services for the elderly and disabled, and countless other areas. It would have spent $1.7 billion less than Governor Ed Rendell’s proposed budget, which itself includes $1 billion in service cuts and funding reductions. Last week, the state House Appropriations Committee rejected the Senate bill.

June 30 is the deadline for approving a new state budget on time. Budget cuts must be made as the state faces a revenue shortfall of at least $3 billion. The failed Senate plan relied on cuts to balance the budget, rejecting other options. The failed proposed budget was full of inefficiency and fat that could be cut, while leaving services to Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens intact.

ADAPT’s position is that our legislators need to work to fund people first. Cuts to vital services for the disabled would be fiscally and morally irresponsible. Regardless of the funds that cutting these services would save immediately, the cost to the state would ultimately increase if the cuts are made. Some disabled people might be placed in “germ-infested” nursing homes and the state would end up paying more to support them there.

Let your Pennsylvania legislators know that you want them to make sure that the approved state budget funds people first. Ask them to support a budget which roughly maintains current funding for disabled programs.

http://www.disabilityoptionsnetwork.org/stategovernment.php

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Senate Budget Bill Rejected

June 9th, 2009

On June 8 House Appropriations Committee rejected the Senate budget Bill (S.B. 850). S.B. 850 would have made deep cuts to key programs that would force more disabled people out of their homes and into nursing homes, bring long-term care rebalancing to a halt, create waiver waiting lists and possibly eliminate Act-150.

Although times are tough, cutting vital programs is not the answer. Cutting home and community based services would not only harm vulnerable residents but also worsen the recession by reducing overall economic activity.

Any budget that takes away home and community based services violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision giving people with disabilities the choice to live independently. Olmstead rejected the argument that lack of funds justifies institutional segregation.

Let your legislators know that you want them to make sure that the approved state budget funds people first:

http://www.disabilityoptionsnetwork.org/stategovernment.php

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