1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?
Extended Medicaid Dollars for States in Jeopardy, Call Your Senators Today!
2) National News
DOJ Files Briefs in Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey Alleging Failure to Comply with the ADA
Senate Candidate Rand Paul Wants To Abolish the Americans With Disabilities Act, Citing Fairness ‘To The Business Owner’
3) State News
Progress Made in Virginia for Adding Disability History to Curriculum
An Anniversary for Access Living: Disability Rights Activists Celebrate 30 Years of Opening Eyes — and Doors
Medicaid Change Worries Nebraskans with Disabilities
4) Announcements and Additional Resources
2010 ATI Conference August 13-15; Baltimore, Maryland
Gateway Project Seeks Participants in Healthcare Research
Extended Medicaid Dollars for States in Jeopardy, Call Your Senators Today!
Act Now:
- Contact your Senators toll free at: 1.888.340.6521 (hotline compliments of the AFSCME). Input your zip code to be connected to your Senators’ offices.
- Encourage your Senators to support restoring the six-month extension of the increased federal Medicaid match. Impress upon them the importance of extending the Medicaid match to address increasing fiscal pressures on the Medicaid program.
- Emphasize the need for expeditious action given session adjournment dates, budget and appropriations negotiations, and state fiscal conditions. Any information that explains the consequences of not extending the FMAP enhanced match should be highlighted in your discussions.
Background Information: The U.S. Senate returns this week from recess and is expected to take up H.R. 4213, legislation that once included a six-month extension of the Enhanced Match (FMAP) for Medicaid and Title IV-E programs authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Last week, the House discarded the $24 billion FMAP Provision.
Hopefully, Senate Leadership will attempt to re-insert the FMAP provision into H.R. 4213. Not including the FMAP extension could mean major consequences for state budgets and the ability of people with disabilities to live in the community, as well as funding for some IL Centers.
The $25.5 billion extension of provisions in ARRA would cover the period between Jan. 1, 2011 and June 30, 2011, which represents the second half of fiscal year (FY) 2011 for nearly all states. Many states have already included the FMAP extension in their budgets and have no back-up plan if it does not pass. Dollar amounts involved in covering shortfalls go into the billions. NCIL encourages extension of the enhanced Medicaid match established in ARRA for an additional six months.
Source: significant portions of this alert were taken from documents provided by the National Conference of State Legislators. You can learn more about this topic and its impact on individual states at their website: http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?TabId=20453.
DOJ Files Briefs in Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey Alleging Failure to Comply with the ADA
Source: www.justice.gov
The Justice Department [May 25th] announced it has filed briefs in three separate cases in Florida, Illinois and New Jersey as part of its continuing effort to enforce civil rights laws that require states to end discrimination against and unnecessary segregation of persons with disabilities. The department’s filings support two private lawsuits seeking relief in Florida and New Jersey, as well as a proposed statewide class action settlement in Illinois.
The briefs allege that the three states are failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., a decision that has often been called the Brown v. Board of Education of the disability rights movement. Last year, President Obama issued a proclamation launching the “Year of Community Living,” and has directed the Administration to redouble enforcement efforts.
The department filed a brief as amicus curiae, or a “friend of the court,” to support a motion by New Jersey residents with disabilities for summary judgment against the state on their claims brought under the ADA. According to the brief, New Jersey is failing to serve individuals with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. New Jersey’s placement from institutions to community-based settings has slowed to a trickle, with new admissions largely being placed in institutions. Thousands of individuals continue to be institutionalized despite meeting ADA and Olmstead criteria for community placement, the brief states. Read More.
Senate Candidate Rand Paul Wants To Abolish the Americans With Disabilities Act, Citing Fairness ‘To The Business Owner’
Source: ThinkProgress, by Joe Sonka (Reported May 18, 2010)
U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY), a darling of the tea party movement, has gained notoriety for his extreme views and close relationships with fringe leaders like Alex Jones. Part of Paul’s appeal has been his supposed support of individuals over large interests, like the government. But Paul appeared to reveal his true priorities during an interview with the candidate in Lexington over the weekend.
Paul was asked whether he supports the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark 1990 legislation that established a prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability. Paul said he advocates local governments to decide whether disabled individuals deserve rights. Requiring businesses to provide access to disabled people, Paul argued, isn’t “fair to the business owner.” Later in the interview, when asked if he believes Americans have a right to use the 2nd Amendment to violently overthrow the government, a Paul staffer physically intercepted the recording and shuffled Paul away.
PAUL: You know a lot of things on employment ought to be done locally. You know, people finding out right or wrong locally. You know, some of the things, for example we can come up with common sense solutions — like for example if you have a three story building and you have someone apply for a job, you get them a job on the first floor if they’re in a wheelchair as supposed to making the person who owns the business put an elevator in, you know what I mean? So things like that aren’t fair to the business owner. [...]. Read More.
Progress Made in Virginia for Adding Disability History to Curriculum
Source: Add Disability History to Curriculum FaceBook Cause
Last week a group of advocates met with two members from the Office of Special Instruction at the Virginia Department of Education. The group submitted testimony and the VA DOE is looking at the existing curriculum for opportunities to add disability history and how to have Disability History and Awareness Month celebrated by all schools.
Many states have youth self advocacy groups. One group in Virginia is called Youth Leadership. The members of the Youth Leadership group got together and met with legislatures to pass a resolution in VA for Disability History and Awareness Month. Here is a web site dedicated to helping youth self advocacy groups across the United States in efforts to pass legislation for Disability History and Awareness Month: http://disabilityhistoryweek.org/. Approximately 7 states have a bill, 11 have a resolution and others are making efforts. Check this website to see where your state is in this process. If your state is not making efforts, contact this group and inquire about how to get started.
An Anniversary for Access Living: Disability Rights Activists Celebrate 30 Years of Opening Eyes — and Doors
Source: Chicago Tribune, by Dawn Turner Trice
On the credenza in Marca Bristo's sunny downtown Access Living office are a Barbie doll in a wheelchair, a photograph of one of Bristo's two grown children and awards for her equal rights work on behalf of people with disabilities. The items form a composite of a life — her activism, sexuality and push for independent living — that Bristo didn't think would ever be possible in 1977 when she broke her neck diving off a Pratt Boulevard Beach pier.
Bristo, now 56, is the president and CEO of Access Living, a community-based, nonresidential agency that has advocated locally and internationally for people with disabilities. Access Living turns 30 years old this month and on Monday is holding its anniversary gala.
One of Bristo's earliest victories was helping draft the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It turns 20 in July. When Access Living opened its doors in 1980, the concepts of independence, equal rights and reasonable accommodations for the disabled — such as making sidewalks wheelchair-accessible or adding hydraulic lifts to public buses — were cutting-edge and, for many, almost counterintuitive.
Perhaps the same can be said for what Bristo views as the movement's next frontier: "We're still fighting for accessibility and the enforcement of the ADA," said Bristo, who is partially paralyzed and uses a wheelchair. "But now we're working on instilling pride and artistic expression, and creating leaders." Read More.
Medicaid Change Worries Nebraskans with Disabilities
Source: Lincoln Journal Star, by Mark Andersen
Lincoln resident Carrie O'Brien, who has cerebral palsy, fears that care denials from a new company overseeing Medicaid home health requests will force her from her own home and into a nursing or group home. "I do not want to end up in a nursing home, and I do not want to end up in group home I've been in both and that's not for me," she said. Quadriplegics and other people with disabilities say a little-noticed change in Nebraska Medicaid home health oversight could strip them of choices, force them into nursing homes -- even endanger their lives.
For Mark Geones, a 49-year-old Lincoln man, that brings back memories of the horrid days after his injury in 1993. "Sitting in feces for 18 hours, I couldn't get health aides to clean me up," he said. "I'm afraid the whole thing will revert back into a situation like that and that I'm going to lose the ability to be independent."
That fear, state Medicaid Director Vivianne Chaumont said, has been fostered by home health agencies that could lose income because of a change in the state's Medicaid administrator and multiple care denials. "They need to be careful to not scare people that doom is going to happen, that they'll be sent to a nursing home," she said. "That's not what's going to happen."
But that is exactly what Joni Thomas fears. Thomas, 53, is director of The Center for Independent Living in Grand Island and a post-polio quadriplegic who lives in Lincoln."I expect people are going to lose their ability to stay in the community," she said, "And I hope the result is huge lawsuits, and I'm hoping a groundswell of advocacy will spring forth." Read More.
2010 ATI Conference August 13-15; Baltimore, Maryland
The 10th Annual Association of Travel Instruction Continuing Education Conference will be held from Friday, August 13, to Sunday, August 15, 2010, at the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. Full conference registration information can be found at http://www.travelinstruction.org.
The ATI conference sessions can benefit new, growing and experienced travel training programs. There will be presentations about hiring and training new travel trainers; documents needed to manage a travel training program; partnering with ADA paratransit staff at a transit property to achieve positive travel training outcomes; and a cost/benefit model and budget for a travel training service. The ATI conference also focuses on a travel training growth area: teaching high school students in transition how to use local public transportation safely and independently. One session is a detailed review about how travel training is working for students in transition in a large metropolitan area school district, while a second panel looks at marketing and funding travel training for students in transition. At some roadway intersections, identifying a safe path of travel can be a daunting task for even the most experienced travel trainer, so at the August ATI conference there will be a panel presentation about the variables involved in teaching safe street crossings. A second panel for longtime travel trainers will examine the most important competencies of primary and secondary route training for students with disabilities in transition programs. Additional conference sessions will cover the use of assistive technology in travel training; information about side effects of commonly-prescribed medications that travel training students might be taking; and an update about the impending manufacture of a new wheelchair-accessible sedan vehicle with public/private transportation uses.
Gateway Project Seeks Participants in Healthcare Research
The Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) and the Gernsbacher Lab have created the Gateway Project. The project serves as a gateway for research that is committed to inclusion, respect, accessibility, and community relevance. Several Gateway studies may interest people with disabilities. A new AASPIRE Gateway study focuses on the healthcare experiences of
- adults on the autistic spectrum,
- non-autistic adults with disabilities, and
- non-autistic adults without disabilities.
AASPIRE expects to use the information learned from this study to improve healthcare. To participate in the AASPIRE Healthcare Study and any of the Gateway studies:
- Register for a Gateway account at the Gateway homepage: http://thegatewayproject.org.
- Take the online Gateway Survey. It will take about 20-40 minutes to complete.
- Wait for email messages about further studies. You may be eligible for some studies and not for others. You will only receive email messages for studies for which you are eligible.
- If you are eligible for the Healthcare Study and decide to participate, it will take about 40 minutes to complete.
- After finishing each survey, you can enter a drawing for an Amazon.com gift certificate.
If you would like to learn more about AASPIRE or the Gateway Project, you can
- Go to the Gateway home page: http://thegatewayproject.org,
- Send an email to Dora Raymaker at dora@aaspireproject.org, or
- Make a telephone call to Dr. Christina Nicolaidis at 1-503-494-9602.
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June 7, 2010