1) What’s Happening in the Nation’s Capital?
President Obama Uses Address to Congress to Push Reform
Act Now: Davis Nomination to Move Next Week
2) National News
Harkin Becomes HELP Committee Chairman
NCIL Now Pushing the Community First Choice Option in Healthcare Reform
Senate Finance Committee Releases Framework of Bill
3) State News
New York State Discriminated Against People with Mental Illness, Judge Rules
Florida Teacher Retains Job, District Told It Can't Fire Her Over Abuse of Students with Disabilities
4) Announcements and Additional Resources
Save the Date! SILC Congress 2010
Independent Media 2.0: NYLN's Teleconference on Blogs & Social Media!
Catch HHS’ Ear: Healthy People 2020 Meetings Announced
Autism: The Last Human Rights Movement (Opinion Editorial)
President Obama Uses Address to Congress to Push Reform
On Wednesday evening, President Obama delivered an address to a Joint Session of Congress. In his Speech he stated that his reforms would, “provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance… provide insurance for those who don't. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. The President then went on to outline more about what his plan means for people who have health insurance: “Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan. First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”
The President then talked about issues that impact people with disabilities: “Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick”.
President Obama also talked about the importance of a Public Health Insurance program to ensure choice, competition and affordability. Finally, he spoke about his ideas for paying for the reform without adding to the national deficit. He said that we can offset new costs by reform to the current healthcare system and by curbing fraud and abuse in Medicare. To close the speech, President Obama invoked the memory of the late Senator Kennedy and reflected on a letter that the Senator had written to the President in May. The next few weeks will show how effective the speech was at getting Congress and the rest of the country behind meaningful reform.
Read the President’s speech.
Act Now: Davis Nomination to Move Next Week
Oppose Judge Davis to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals! NCIL has strongly opposed the nomination of Judge Andre Davis to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and has learned that the nomination may move to a floor vote in the full Senate next week.
Call both of your U.S. Senators today and tell them to VOTE NO to confirm Judge Andre Davis to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals based upon your strong concerns about his disability employment discrimination record. You can remind your Senators that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has historically been hostile to people with disabilities, and that this nomination will not change that.
In last week's WhAM!, NCIL shared a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that limited the rights of state Protection and Advocacy organizations to sue institutions in federal court. NCIL feels that by adding Judge Davis to the Fourth Circuit, this court will continue to hand down rulings that are detrimental to people with disabilities.
If you have questions, please contact NCIL Policy Analyst, Jason Beloungy, at 202-207-0334 (toll-free 1-877-525-3400) ext. 1008. Jason can also be reached by e-mail at jason@ncil.com.
Harkin Becomes HELP Committee Chairman
Last Wednesday, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced that he would retain his Chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee, opening the door for a replacement to Chair the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Senator Dodd assumed many of the responsibilities of the Chairmanship until Senator Ted Kennedy passed away late last month. Disability advocates were pleased to learn that long-time ally, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), would relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, and assume Chairmanship of the HELP Committee. In this position Senator Harkin will be stepping into a leading role in the healthcare reform process. The HELP Committee has already passed a bill, but once the Senate Finance Committee passes their version, the two Committees will have to merge the two bills into one, which will then be voted on by the full Senate. NCIL is hopeful that with Senator Harkin as Chair of the HELP Committee, the Senate can come up with a bill that best addresses the barriers to health insurance, healthcare and long-term care that exist for millions of people with disabilities.
NCIL Now Pushing the Community First Choice Option in Healthcare Reform
NCIL continues to vigorously support the Community Choice Act (CCA) as a stand-alone bill.
For the last several months, NCIL has been working hard in Washington to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities are addressed in healthcare reform, while educating NCIL members about what is going on and how they can be involved.
Since the beginning of this process, NCIL has clearly stated its priorities in an effort to integrate the needs of the disability community into healthcare reform legislation, including language to end the institutional bias in Medicaid. It has been our unwavering goal to have the language of the CCA in the final reform bill, and our policy to pursue a compromise only if it became very clear that the CCA would not be a part of the reform legislation. Over the course of the last few weeks, that fact has been made very clear to disability advocates in Washington and throughout the nation. It is now time NCIL and the rest of the disability community pursue compromise in order to advance progress in our fight to end the institutional bias.
Read More.
Senate Finance Committee Releases Framework of Bill
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus released a document last week outlining the framework of that Committee’s healthcare reform legislation, which will be released this week. While three House Committees and one Senate Committee have passed a version of a bill out of their respective committees, the Senate Finance Committee has been working behind closed doors on their own bill. Much of the delay has come from the bipartisan negotiations between six senators , known as the “Gang of Six”. This Gang of Six includes Republican Senators Grassley, Enzi and Snowe, as well as Democrats Baucus, Conrad and Bingaman. In the document, Senator Baucus outlined major areas of reform to be covered in the legislation, including:
- Creation of a Health Insurance Exchange for the small group and non-group market to allow for simple and efficient comparison of benefit plans and costs
- Health Insurance Companies would be required to offer coverage on a guaranteed basis and would be prohibited from denying or cancelling coverage based on pre-existing conditions
- An individual and employer mandate to have health insurance. Hardship and religious exemptions would be allowed, but the mandate would be supported by the subsidies listed above
- Health insurance companies could not place caps or limits on coverage
- Federal funding for start-up costs to create health insurance co-ops that would be non-profit and member-run. This is viewed as an alternative to the full public health insurance program
- Funding for Money Follows the Person Grants (no other details)
- Funding for Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC)(language likely from the project 20/20 legislation, no details in outline)
- A new Office of Coordination for Dual Eligible (Medicare and Medicaid) Beneficiaries
- New standards to evaluate health disparities of people with disabilities
- Pilot program to encourage bundling of post-acute care services to achieve Medicare savings
- Elimination of the 1st-month purchase option for power wheelchairs in Medicare
- Improved transparency of nursing home information (no details in outline)
For more details, read the outline (PDF).
To be clear, this is only the framework of the bill that the Finance Committee is expected to release this week. There was not much explanation for these proposals at this time, but NCIL will keep members informed once the bill is released and will be urging our members to be involved in the healthcare reform debate. NCIL did not see any proposals for changes to long-term care, elimination of the 2-year wait for Medicare, or efforts to create access standards for examination and diagnostic equipment in medicals and dental clinics.
New York State Discriminated Against People with Mental Illness, Judge Rules
Source: New York Times, by James Barron
New York State discriminated against thousands of [people with mental illness] in New York City by leaving them in privately run adult homes, which effectively replaced state-run psychiatric hospitals more than a generation ago but turned out to be little more than institutions themselves, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, ruled that the state was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by housing more than 4,300 [people with mental illness] in New York City in more than two dozen adult homes. He said the residents had little hope of mingling with anyone in the wider community.
The nonprofit group that sued the state had asked Judge Garaufis to tell state officials they could no longer steer [people with mental illness] into adult homes. He stopped short of that but directed the state to submit a “remedial plan” by mid-October.
Read More.
Florida Teacher Retains Job, District Told It Can't Fire Her Over Abuse of Students with Disabilities
Source: Herald Tribune, by Kim Hackett
Editor’s Note: This story has not been edited to reflect people first language.
Venice Elementary School special education teacher Diana O'Neill will be suspended and undergo a job change but she will not be fired, as the Sarasota School District had desired, an employment arbitrator ruled Tuesday.
O'Neill was under fire after she was accused by the district of hitting, kicking, pushing and otherwise abusing her severely disabled students. She was arrested and charged with four counts of child abuse, but was acquitted of those charges in February.
Following the acquittal, the district sought to have O'Neill fired, arguing that her treatment of four profoundly disabled students was a “flagrant violation of her responsibilities as a teacher.”
While finding that O'Neill got rough with her students — including hitting them on the head with water bottles, kicking a student and pulling the skin off the lip of another — arbitrator Mark Lurie said because the district knew about O'Neill's behavior but never disciplined her for her misconduct or even gave her a verbal warning, she could not be fired. The decision cannot be appealed.
Venice Elementary School Principal Theresa Baus said she talked to O'Neill about her behavior and warned her not to hit or hurt the students, but never notified her that she was being given a verbal warning.
None of O'Neill's actions made it into her personnel file and no one who witnessed her getting physical with students ever called the Child Abuse Hot Line, as required by law, Lurie wrote.
It was not until two classroom aides came forward in January 2008, with a log detailing what they say are dozens of instances of abuse, that Baus called the hot line after being advised by her bosses to do so.
Lurie ruled that after a four-week suspension and counseling O'Neill be allowed to return to her $80,000-a-year teaching job, or one similar. Read More.
Save the Date! SILC Congress 2010
SILC Congress 2010 in Summerlin, Nevada (suburb of Las Vegas) January 3-5, 2010, at the JW Marriott Resort.
Independent Media 2.0: NYLN's Teleconference on Blogs & Social Media!
Curious about the hype behind blogs, youtube, twitter, podcasts and zines? Join NYLN on Monday September 21st at 8 pm est, for a teleconference & webcast on independent media. We will have national media experts talk about how they use free, accessible media tools to build community and advocate for people with disabilities. We promise--- you won't want to miss this!!
Monday September 21 at 8 pm EST / 7 pm CST / 6 pm MST / 5 pm PST / 4 pm Alaska / 3 pm Hawaii
Speakers Include: Moya Bailey, Quirky Black Girls founder; Anita Cameron, ADAPT media maker; Cripchick, feminist blogger; Ari Ne'eman and Melanie Yergeau, organizers with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network
To sign up, visit www.nyln.org and click the link at the bottom of the page!
Catch HHS’ Ear: Healthy People 2020 Meetings Announced
The Centers for Disease Control has announced that registration is now open for the 2009 "Healthy People 2020" Public Meetings. Every ten years the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services publishes this report which provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for promoting health and preventing disease. This would be a good opportunity to tell HHS about issues that affect people with disabilities.
The dates and sites are as follows:
- October 22, 2009: Kansas City, KS; Kansas University Medical Center
- November 7, 2009: Philadelphia, PA; Thomas Jefferson University, Jefferson School of Population Health
- November 20, 2009: Seattle, Washington; Red Lion Hotel on Fifth Avenue
There is no registration cost. Online registration is open at: http://www.healthypeople.gov/hp2020/regional/default.
Autism: The Last Human Rights Movement
Source: Huffington Post, by William Stillman
Within the past year, I generated a poll to people on the autism spectrum and received 30 replies from individuals across the country that ranged in age from seven to their mid-60s. One of the questions I asked pertained to the message they wished to convey to others who are not diagnosed and are considered "normal." Without exception, the responses were consistent: we want to be acknowledged, heard, valued, believed, and accepted. The time has come, then, for us to enter into new dialogues about working with others instead of on them; adapting instead of fixing; including instead of segregating; and not merely tolerating but accepting. This agenda is not dissimilar from those advanced by women's rights, civil rights, physical-disability rights, and gay rights activists in years prior, and Ari Ne'eman's the closest thing autism's got to Rosa Parks. We're not asking for the moon, only to fulfill an essential human need. After all, isn't the desire to be accepted all that any one of us truly wants? People with autism deserve to be valued as people first, not as anomalies that are all too often judged a third-class caste. Read More.
|
September 14, 2009