‘Our homes, not nursing homes,’ disability activists tell Obama
August 10th, 2010From the Austin American Statesman and the paper’s Postcards blog:
Disability activists were among the crowd that turned out to greet the President in Texas Monday, shouting protests about an unfulfilled campaign promise to ensure home-based support programs.
“Our homes, not nursing homes,” they chanted, waving a banner from a curbside perch along the route of the president’s Austin motorcade.
Bob Kafka of the disability rights group ADAPT said the activists were urging Obama to make good his promise to help pass the Community Choice Act. The measure would give people with disabilities the option of receiving federal support services while living on their own rather than in institutions.
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October 2nd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
In order to truly effectuate home-based medical/social support options for the disabled, there needs to be uniform, national eligibility standards for home-based care across the 50 states, with portabiity of benefits. The current system, which entails hetrogenous waiver eligibility requirements under 1915(c) chains the disabled beneficiary of state Medicaid to the particular state of eligibility origination. There is no pragmatic ability to transfer these benefits to a new, out of state locale, due to enrollment caps and lengthy waiting lists. This not only locks the disabled into a geographic catchment–but their families as well, contributing to further illiquidity in the labor market. Entire families ar precluded from re-locating to take advantage of better employment/education opportunities, because the emotional price of abadoning the disabled MediCaid waiver recipient is to high, and the cost of abandoning the disabled individual’s waiver benefits tantamount to financial suicide.