Further reporting on Washington protests

From Roll Call (registration required):

Hundreds of protesters from the disability advocacy group ADAPT, many in wheelchairs, cut off access to the office of GOP presidential candidate John McCain and the Republican National Committee headquarters for most of the afternoon on Tuesday. At least 21 arrests were made.

ADAPT national coordinator Mike Oxford, who took part in the protest outside the RNC, said the group came to Capitol Hill to urge McCain to support the Community Choice Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.).

… The protest is one in a series ADAPT has sponsored over the years in support of legislation that would shift federal money to community-based disability assistance and away from nursing homes and other institutions. The group held a similar protest at the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday.

Medicaid currently pays for long-term care in nursing homes and other institutions but does not pay for the same services provided at an individual’s home. ADAPT and other disability activists argue that this “institutional bias” essentially forces people with disabilities to move into such facilities.

The Community Choice Act would allow Medicaid dollars to flow to community-based care options, but the bill has yet to be considered on the floor in either chamber. Variations of the legislation have been introduced since the late 1990s but have stalled over cost estimates suggesting the bill could cost tens of billions of dollars annually.

Disability advocates believe these estimates are wildly overstated, and supporters are working with the Congressional Budget Office to get a new, more realistic cost estimate for the bill before moving it to a vote in either chamber, according to Democratic staffers.

Both of the Democratic presidential contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), have signed on as co-sponsors of the Senate bill, and the goal of Tuesday’s protest was to get a meeting with key Republicans through which protesters hoped to win McCain’s endorsement as well, Oxford said.

Earlier post here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 8:30 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, advocacy, independent living, institutionalization, politics, wheelchair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post