Tom Harkin asks for our help

Dear Friends of Disability Rights and Services:

I am participating in ADAPT s 10th Annual FUN*RUN for Disability Rights on Sunday, April 19, 2015 at Upper Senate Park in Washington, DC.

This event will support disability activists in our continuing fight to END THE INSTITUTIONAL BIAS in our long term services and supports system.  This battle continues even as we celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  Though the passage of the ADA was one of the most significant pieces of legislation I sponsored in 30 years in the United States Senate, there is still more to do.

The ADAPT Community is the largest national grassroots disability rights activist organization in the country.  Through their work, thousands of people with disabilities and older Americans have gotten out of or avoided going in to nursing homes or other institutions.  I was proud to promote the Money Follows the Person (MFP) program and get the Community First Choice Option in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  The END THE INSTITUTIONAL BIAS Campaign is also a state issue as we fight to protect the Medicaid funding and services that low income children, young adults and seniors with disabilities depend on to live in the community with dignity, independence and good health.

You can support me, disability rights activists, and the END THE INSTITUTIONAL BIAS Campaign by pledging for the laps I run around Upper Senate Park. To make a tax-deductible contribution all you have to do is click on the link and follow the easy instructions.

www.adaptfunrun.net/runner/message/385<http://www.adaptfunrun.net/runner/message/385>

Even though I am not a Senator anymore, it is important to remember in these politically charged times that there are real people with real support needs behind all the rhetoric we hear from Washington, DC.  You can make a difference with your contribution. Together we can and will make a difference.

Thank you,

Tom Harkin


CELEBRATE ADA25!!

Flyer: http://ly.adapt.org/FRLtr

Sen. Harkin to retire

Iowa Legislator says the system is backward, rather than Medicaid Waivers for Home and Community Services; people should get services at home and in the community first.

By Tim Wheat

This past May, Sen. Harkin received a sincere farewell from ADAPT activists in Washington DC, because he retires from the US Senate at the end of this term; but the Senator stated directly that he was not retiring from the fight for disability rights. 

At the Spring ADAPT Action Bob Kafka introduced Tom Harkin with a brief history of the many issues that had brought ADAPT and Sen. Harkin together. Kafka said that Sen. Harkin was responsible for hundreds of ADAPT members being arrested and in return the Senator had worked to pass critical legislation that has been central to disability equality in the US.

"You have been thanking me, but that is not right. I am proud and feel privileged to be part of your group," said Sen. Harkin; "proud and privileged to have had a part to play. You are the ones that need to be thanked. You are always vigilant, resolute. No matter if it is a Democrat or Republican. If there are policies or laws or regulations that are somehow, someplace are making any one person with a disability take a backseat; you are out there. You are out there and you know what? You make us feel our consciences."

As Sen. Harkin finishes his time in Washington, he will be working to get the Convention on the rights of People with Disabilities to be ratified by the US Senate. The Convention know also as the “disability treaty” is modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act but has always come up short of Senate ratification since President Obama signed it in 2009. 

Harkin has been a great supporter of the disability community and is most known for introducing the Americans with Disabilities Act to the Senate and using American Sign Language in a Senate speech in support of the ADA. He is also responsible for Money Follows the Person and much of the Community Choice Act making its way into US policy. 

Support Disability Rights Worldwide!

The Memphis Center for Independent Living hopes you support the civil rights of people with disabilities not just in Memphis, but worldwide. The Convention on the Rights of People (CRPD) with Disabilities is a treaty signed by the US in 2009, but it has yet to be ratified by the US Senate.

The treaty is modeled on the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and will promote American values and commitment to inclusion of all people worldwide. The CRPD is a symbol of US strength and leadership in the world and advances our shared ideal and national power.

American businesses support ratification of the CRPD, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Business Leadership Network, and the Information Technology Industry Council. Many U.S. companies including IBM, AT&T, Adobe, and JP Morgan Chase support ratification.

There are eight guiding principles that underlie the Convention:

1. Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one's own choices, and independence of persons
2. Non-discrimination
3. Full and effective participation and inclusion in society
4. Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity
5. Equality of opportunity
6. Accessibility
7. Equality between men and women
8. Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities.

The Center has prepared a letter to Sen. Alexander asking him for his support for the CRPD. You may come to MCIL (1633 Madison in midtown Memphis) and put your name on this letter. MCIL will deliver the letter to Sen. Alexander on September 8.

Show your support for disability rights worldwide

The text of the letter

September 8, 2014

Dear Senator Alexander: We are writing to support ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD is a non discrimination treaty seeking to achieve the same goals as the Americans with Disabilities Act and other existing disability laws in United States: to empower individuals with disabilities to achieve economic self­ sufficiency, independent living, inclusion and integration into all aspects of society. The CRPD is important to all people with disabilities, including our veterans and servicemembers with disabilities, as it embodies equal treatment and non discrimination in access to rehabilitation, employment and educational opportunities. By ratifying the CRPD, the United States will continue to be a leader in setting the standards for ensuring the human rights of individuals with disabilities. The Convention reflects core American values such as the dignity of the individual, access to justice, the importance of family decision making and access to appropriate health care. We are committed to US leadership on behalf of the one billion people with disabilities worldwide. We believe swift US ratification of the CRPD in a bipartisan fashion is in this country’s best interest and ask you for your support and leadership on this issue.

The Community Integration Act

PART TWO: The case for the Community Integration Act

When Medicaid created long-term services and supports in the mid-1960s, the program inadvertently generated a bias to serve Americans in facilities and institutions. Now fifty years later and twenty-four years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, the community is much less accepting of segregating people with disabilities in expensive institutions.  

The bias is very evident to many Americans: “why not spend the money so the individuals can stay in their home?” The most rational claim is that serving people in their home, with their families, spending money in the local community, with access to employment is actually less expensive. Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), do not represent a minuscule saving of state and federal Medicaid funds, diverting people from expensive institutional care can cut Medicaid costs in half. Harkin’s report states that Alabama’s Independent Living program cost under $11,000 per person compared to over $36,000 for people served in an Alabama nursing facility.

The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee report also shows that while many states have increased the number of people that receive HCBS they have not necessarily decreased the nursing home population. Medicaid HCBS is only available to individuals at a “nursing home level of care,” but nursing homes have been effective at “back-filling” the institutions and preventing the states from saving federal and state funds. Maryland served over six thousand with HCBS between 2008 and 2012, but decreased the number of people in nursing homes by less than 400. Colorado likewise expanded HCBS to over five-thousand nursing home eligible people, but only decreased individuals in expensive facilities by 84.

Between 2000 and 2012 there was a 31% increase in the total amount of Medicaid funding for nursing homes. Nationally we paid a $12.4 billion more in Medicaid funding for nursing homes during those years despite an 18% reduction in number of nursing home residents.

At the time of the Olmstead decision, Tennessee was dead last in the country on providing alternatives to costly nursing homes. Our state spent 99.5% of federal Medicaid Long-Term funding on institutions in 2000 and has advanced that to 31.3% today. Tennessee has done well, but is still nowhere near where the state should be to comply with the Civil Rights focus of Olmstead. The Community Integration Act is what our state needs to rebalance our Medicaid funding and really give people the choice to live at home and not be forced into expensive institutions.

Read Part One: The Community Integration Act of 2014.

- Tim Wheat

PART ONE: Why are people with disabilities still demanding Civil Rights?

Sen. Harkin introduces the Community Integration Act to strengthen the ADA.

Sen Harkin speaks with Bob Kafka of ADAPT

Last week Sen. Tom Harkin from Iowa introduced the Community Integration Act to ensure that Americans with disabilities have the right to live at home with families and are not forced into expensive institutions by the federal Medicaid policy. A year ago the Senate HELP Committee released a report that found that despite the 1999 Olmstead decision that upheld the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act “integration mandate,” 75% of US states still spent a majority of their long term services and support funding on costly institutional care; segregating people with disabilities in facilities. Tennessee is one of those states.

The rewards for a state are large. The state of Arizona reported to Harkin’s Senate Committee that, since 1998, its “HCBS placement percentage has increased by over 30 percent, which has resulted in $300 million in savings.” Tennessee has had the most to benefit from cost-saving Home and Community based services because in the year following Olmstead, our state reported that 99.5% of Medicaid funding was channelled into facilities. Since Olmstead, Tennessee is one of only 5 states that was able to decrease its Medicaid nursing home expenditures.

Tennessee has begun to save state and federal funds but is still new to the cost-saving concept of alternatives to expensive institutions. The Nursing Home Industry, with a national lobby and federally supported facilities in every Tennessee county, is good at keeping the government funds flowing into their corporate pockets.

The money-savings seems to make the case to most people, however it is important to see the civil-rights perspective that disability rights activists have suggested for years and is at the heart of The Community Integration Act. Most Americans easily see segregation as discrimination. It is inconsistent with American values to isolate people because of a disability; to provide people with services only if they leave their home, family, work and community is anathema to our national commitment to civil rights.

Sen. Harkin talks with ADAPT members

The Memphis Center for Independent Living is working hard to make the choice to live in the community a reality for people with disabilities. Independent Living has been around longer than either the ADA or Olmstead, but supporting inclusion in civic life and community is even more essential now that individuals have realistic options to be part of everyday civic life.

The US Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead v. LC decision is the disability rights equivalent of Brown v. Board stating that unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities is a violation of the ADA. Olmstead did not outlaw or close expensive nursing homes but now, 15 years after Olmstead, over 60 percent of Medicaid Long-Term funding is spent on costly institutions and in Tennessee nearly 70 percent of our Medicaid Long-Term money goes to facilities.

A Medicaid bias in the federal program makes nursing home care a requirement for each US state, while cost-saving Home and Community based services are optional for each state. The Community Integration Act removes this bias and allows US states to provide services that citizens want and need.

Next

PART TWO: The case for the Community Integration Act