1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?
Major Healthcare Reform Bill Passes! Legislative Changes Anticipated This Week
2) National News
Elementary and Secondary Education Act Blueprint Released
EBay Sued for Violating ADA
FCC Names COAT Co-Founder Karen Peltz Strausses Deputy Chief in Consumer Bureau
3) State News
Steve Gold Information Bulletin: Tenant Based Rental Assistance, Housing and Olmstead
Ohio: Identity of Tea Partier Who Lashed Out at Man with Disability Still a Mystery (video)
4) Announcements and Additional Resources
NCIL Requests Your Assistance with our National ADRC Survey
Nonprofits Can Save the Cost of Payroll Taxes for New Hires through 2010
Major Healthcare Reform Bill Passes! Legislative Changes Anticipated This Week
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Senate healthcare reform bill (H.R. 3590) by a margin of 219-212. Shortly afterwards, the House passed H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010 by a vote of 220-211. This is a huge victory for our community, and everyone who has fought for the disability-related priorities included in the reform should take a moment to celebrate!
H.R. 3590 (the bill that passed in the Senate back in December) contained the Community First Choice Option, the CLASS program, increased Medicaid eligibility, and the elimination of discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, amongst other things.
The legislation will now go to the President for his signature and America will take a step towards ending the institutional bias by creating the option for States to include home and community based services in their Medicaid plans. With the CLASS Program, America will now have a public long-term care insurance plan that people who are employed can purchase and receive benefits from at first eligibility, or many years from now. People with disabilities, who face an alarming rate of poverty and unemployment, will have access to Medicaid without facing the complex disability determination process.
With the President’s signature, people with disabilities cannot be denied health insurance coverage when they apply, cannot be dropped from existing insurance, and cannot have their coverage rescinded because of a pre-existing condition. Some of the reforms will be immediate and some will take longer to implement, but our broken system will see some much needed reform.
The Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 is considered a fix to H.R. 3590 and will head to the Senate this week. The process will be an exercise in the arcane procedures of passing a reconciliation bill through the Senate. The bill may have a tough go because each provision could be challenged on whether it meets the strict rules of the reconciliation process.
Created by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), the “Byrd Rule” states that any provision in a budget reconciliation bill must affect the budget. Typically, challenges are waved, but Republicans have guaranteed that they will challenge each and every provision. Each challenge will go before the Senate Parliamentarian, and unelected position in the Senate, who will then make a decision on whether the provision meets the Byrd Rule. The Senate President (U.S. Vice President Joe Biden) can intervene and overrule the Parliamentarian, and can even rule that the challenges are without merit.
The challenges and the Parliamentarian’s review of the bill will affect the process. If there is even one single change made to the bill it will have to go back to the House. If the bill makes it through the process unchanged, it will go to the President to be signed into law.
With the passage of this bill, Congress and President have achieved what has been out of reach for generations – reformation the healthcare and long-term care systems in America. NCIL was engaged in the healthcare and long-term care reform effort long before any legislation was drafted, debated and passed. We are proud to have been a part of this reform effort and to have been able to work with our members and allies to ensure that the long-term care and healthcare needs of people with disabilities were addressed.
See the roll call vote for H.R. 3590. If your Representative was a YES vote, call and thank them for making a vote on the right side of history.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act Blueprint Released
On Monday, the Obama administration released the blueprint for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) formerly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). ESEA will ensure that states and local supports are concentrated on preparing students for college and career by creating accountability systems that recognize student growth and school progress.
"To make ESEA work, we have to fix accountability and get it right," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "A rigorous and fair accountability system measures student growth, rewards schools that accelerate student achievement, and identifies and rewards outstanding teachers and leaders. NCLB says that a fifth-grade teacher who helps a student reading at a second-grade level reach a fourth-grade level, within one year, has this missed their goal. In fact, that teacher is an excellent teacher and should be applauded."
States and districts will set high standards to make sure all schools, including high-poverty and low performance, all succeed. A strong focus will be placed on identifying measures to close the gaps. See the Obama Administration’s blueprint for ESEA (PDF).
During this past week, the Senate and the House have held hearings with Secretary of Education to discuss the blueprint. Secretary Duncan reaffirmed the points made in the blueprint and said that he is eager to work with Congress to ensure that ESEA will help revolutionize our nation’s academic standards and prepare students for college and career.
EBay Sued for Violating ADA
Source: Direct Magazine
A federal class-action lawsuit filed against eBay claims that the auction website discriminates against hearing impaired because it requires potential sellers to verify their identity via telephone. The suit, Earll v. eBay, was filed on March 16 in Springfield, MO.
Melissa Earll, who initiated the suit, does not use a phone, because she is profoundly deaf. According to the suit, “eBay steadfastly refuses to offer [Earll] an alternative means to verify her identity, despite her repeated requests. Thus, eBay has violated and continues to violate the American with Disabilities Act and the California Disabled Persons Act with respect to deaf and hard-of-hearing persons.” To verify a potential seller, eBay places an automated call to the seller and asks him to verbally confirm the ID.
According to Earll’s attorney, Michael Aschenbrener of Edelson McGuire, eBay had suggested that Earll have another person answer the phone to verify her identity. “As an independent person living alone, that was not an acceptable solution,” Aschenbrener told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s demeaning.”
An eBay spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company believes it is abiding by the antidiscrimination laws.
FCC Names COAT Co-Founder Karen Peltz Strausses Deputy Chief in Consumer Bureau
Source: FCC
Today, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Deputy Chief Karen Peltz Strauss. Ms. Strauss will focus on disability issues, among other things, and will help the Commission to implement the components of the National Broadband Plan that address access for people with disabilities, including leading the effort to develop a proposed Accessibility and Innovation Forum.
“The FCC has a vital role to play in empowering and protecting all consumers and ensuring they have access to world-class communications networks and technologies” said Chairman Genachowski. “I look forward to drawing on Karen’s extensive experience with telecommunications access issues to realize those goals.” Strauss has over 25 years experience working on telecommunications access for people with disabilities. She is a co-founder of the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, or COAT, a coalition of over 290 national and regional organizations dedicated to ensuring disability access to emerging Internet-based and digital communications technologies in the 21st century. Ms. Strauss most recently provided consulting services to non-profit consumer groups, educational research institutes, and relay service providers. Previously, she served as legal counsel for Gallaudet University's National Center for Law and Deafness, and the National Association of the Deaf. Prior to that, she served as Deputy Bureau Chief of the former Consumer Information Bureau at the FCC. In that capacity, she helped initiate its first Disability Rights Office and managed the Commission’s consumer and disability access programs and policies. Ms. Strauss holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center.
Steve Gold Information Bulletin: Tenant Based Rental Assistance, Housing and Olmstead
Source: www.stevegoldada.com
The HOME Investment Partnership program allocates federal housing funds both to State housing agencies and to local participating jurisdictions.
The amount of federal funds depends on the population size. This program has existed since 1992.
State and local recipients have discretion regarding how to allocate these funds: (1) homebuyer assistance, (2) homeowner rehabilitation, (3) construction, rehabilitation or acquisition for rental units, OR (4) Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA). TBRA is a rental subsidy which is like housing vouchers/Section 8 vouchers.
A TBRA could be used to help people leave institutions - IF the State decided to use its HOME funds for this purpose. It's that simple! See how your State HOME agency used its HOME funds since 1992 only with regards to TBRA.
Ohio: Identity of Tea Partier Who Lashed Out at Man with Disability Still a Mystery (video)
Source: Talking Points Memo, by Justin Elliott
Who is the man in the white dress shirt? That's the question many people are asking in Columbus, Ohio, in the wake of a health care rally that turned ugly last week when a tea-partier harassed a man with Parkinson's, throwing dollar bills at him and screaming in his face about "handouts."
The scene, filmed by the Columbus Dispatch outside the offices of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), went viral, and one of the men at the center of it -- Bob Letcher, the pro-health reform rallier with Parkinson's -- has spoken out.
The tea partier who berated Letcher was dressed in a white shirt and tie, had a cell phone clipped to his belt, and an "I Am AFP!" sign under his arm. AFP stands for Americans for Prosperity, the Washington, DC-based group that organized the event outside Kilroy's office, as well as many of the famous anti-health bill rallies last August. Read more and watch the shocking video.
The video is uncaptioned, but you can read a description and hear from Bob Letcher himself. Says Letcher, “No one was engaging, everyone was screaming. I thought, I don't have to scream, I just have to be there. I walked over and sat down ... I sort of presented myself as an argument by myself.”
NCIL Requests Your Assistance with our National ADRC Survey
The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) ADRC Taskforce began an effort last year to develop a national survey that would measure the level of collaboration between CILs, SILCs, and aging partners, and how well Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) throughout the nation were meeting the Independent Living philosophy of choice and consumer control. Through the survey development, NCIL has collaborated with the Administration on Aging (AoA), the Lewin Group, the National Association of State Units on Aging (NASUA), and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (N4A). This collaborative endeavor has taken some time and effort, but it has yielded a strong survey that will provide meaningful results that can then be used for training and technical assistance for ADRCs that are developed or are developing.
This survey will be sent to every Center for Independent Living (CIL) and every Statewide Independent Living Council (SILC) in the nation. Our aging partners will send this to their local entities and members as well. NCIL realizes that many CILs have branch or satellite offices, and NCIL encourages recipients of this survey to share it with those locations, or any other staff who may work with you local ADRC.
The results of this survey will help the ADRC Technical Assistance Exchange (TAE) to identify training and resource needs regarding ADRCs’ incorporation of Independent Living principles, partnership development and strategies for involving CILs, AAAs and other aging and disability organizations in their planning and program activities.
Take the survey here: http://adrc-tae.org/survey/
Please complete this survey by March 31, 2010. If you have any problems with the survey, or for an alternate format of the survey, please email adrc-tae@lewin.com. NCIL thanks you in advance for your participation.
Nonprofits Can Save the Cost of Payroll Taxes for New Hires through 2010
Source: Alabama Association of Nonprofits
On March 18, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE Act), a $17 billion jobs package that includes temporary tax incentives to encourage employers to hire new workers. The main job-creation incentive allows most employers, including nonprofits, to keep the 6.2 percent payroll taxes on certain new hires, thus lowering their cost. This payroll tax forgiveness provision expires at the end of the year, so nonprofits will save more the sooner they hire eligible unemployed workers.
The IRS released a statement on thier newswire offering a brief outline of the credit. Here are answers to the five key questions that most nonprofits need to know:
- Is my nonprofit eligible? Yes. All 501(c) nonprofits are eligible.
- Who do I need to hire to get the credit? There are four criteria that apply to any person hired after February 3rd:
- The individual must be able to sign an affidavit saying he/she has not worked more than 40 hours in the previous 60 days.
- The new hire cannot replace an existing employee. It is okay to fill vacancies for individuals who left voluntarily or for cause.
- The new hire is not related to a fiduciary of the organization.
- The work the employee is doing must be in furtherance of the employer’s tax-exempt purpose.
- How do you claim the credit? In the words of the provision’s sponsor, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York: “Simply zero out the tax for eligible workers.” This means you do not withhold or set aside Social Security payroll taxes for these eligible workers through the end of the year.
- How long can I claim the credit? From date of enactment, March 18 through December 31, 2010. As an example, for a person who starts work on April 1, the nonprofit keeps the payroll tax money that would otherwise be withheld, amounting to a savings of $1860 for someone with an annual salary of $40,000 (savings of 6.2% payroll taxes on $30,000 which is 9 months of salary).
- Can I claim the $1000 bonus if the employee stays on the payroll for 52 weeks? Normally, no. The law includes a $1000 bonus credit that can only be applied to business income tax liability. Nonprofits are exempt from this liability, except in the area of unrelated business income.
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March 22, 2010