Writing in the Albany Times Union, Michael Volkman says the Obama administration has quietly withdrawn its support of the Community Choice Act, which both Obama and Vice President Biden had co-sponsored as senators. Obama had pledged support for the measure on the campaign trail.

The bill would change the Medicaid statute to remove its bias toward institutional care. Such a change, Volkman says, would reverse “an injustice within Medicaid that ruins people’s lives and wastes your money.”

Now the White House has changed the disabilities issues page on its Web site. Gone is mention of the President’s intention to enforce the Community Choice Act. [See original text here.] The new paragraph merely states that, “the President believes that more can be done to encourage states to shift more of their services away from institutions and into the community, which is both cost effective and humane.”

Encouraging states to take the lead doesn’t mean they will. If they wanted to, they could have done it years ago.

Is this really how the President feels about this issue?

Did he just give us lip service during the campaign?

Earlier posts here.

From the ABC News “Political Punch” blog, Associated Press/USA Today, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Photo Journal:

U.S. Park Police arrested 91 demonstrators in front of the White House yesterday, including some in wheelchairs who chained themselves to the fence. They were protesting what they said was the Obama administration’s failure to honor its campaign promises to support the Community Choice Act.

The measure would provide people with disabilities and older Americans the option to use federal funding for community-based attendant services instead of just for nursing homes.

(Photo from the Wall Street Journal)

Peter V. Berns, executive director of the The Arc of the United States, is calling on President Obama to use the controversy around his Special Olympics remark as an opportunity to advance public understanding and acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities. The comments come in a letter to the president posted on the organization’s website.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities “understand that public attitudes, misinformation and negative stereotypes are the biggest obstacle to their inclusion in the community,” Berns said. “Join us in breaking down the attitudinal barriers that stand in the way of full inclusion.”

Berns called on Obama to convene a White House meeting to address the following:

• The 700,000 individuals and their families on waiting lists for home and community based services;
• Recent reports of abuse and neglect of people with intellectual disabilities in Iowa and Texas;
• The institutional bias of the Medicaid system and the lack of adequate funding for community care; and
• The need to address long term care and support.

(File photo from [UK] Guardian)

Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Cassie James Holdsworth and Nancy Salandra say current Medicaid policy doesn’t provide daily living services to  people with disabilities unless they move to a nursing home. Holdsworth and Salandra call for the passage of the Community Choice Act so that people can get services in their own homes. An excerpt:

Advocates have long been asking Congress to allow people at risk of being admitted to nursing homes to have the option of staying in their own homes with Medicaid dollars. Not only do the vast majority of people prefer living at home; it’s also cheaper.

… So why hasn’t this legislation been approved? The chief barrier is the influential nursing-home industry, which has been entrenched in American society for more than four decades.

Holdsworth and Salandra are director of policy and advocacy and director of independent-living services for Liberty Resources, a nonprofit organization that promotes independent living for people with disabilities in Philadelphia.

On its first working day in office, the new administration has posted its agenda on disabilities here. The disability agenda is among 24 issue areas highlighted for action by the new administration, ranging from civil rights to defense to health care to women’s issues.

The agenda sets out goals that are substantially similar to those laid out in the Obama campaign’s platform on disabilities. Prominently displayed is a call for ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The agenda also lays out initiatives to improve education, employment, and community-based living for people with disabilities, and to end discrimination and promote equal opportunity.

The plan includes a separate section on autism, in which the president pledges support for increased funding for autism research, treatments, screenings, awareness, and support services. The agenda specifically underscores support for research into both the causes and possible treatments for autism spectrum disorders.

The full text of the document follows.

(more…)

By correspondent Karen Meyer at WLS-TV, Chicago (ABC affiliate):

Disability advocates in Chicago have a list of priorities for Barack Obama’s first year in office:

Employment, broad disability representation in government, and passage of the community choice act are high on their lists.  An excerpt:

Employment remains the number one concern and challenge among the disabled population, according to Jim Kesteloot, outgoing executive director of the Chicago Lighthouse for people who are blind and visually impaired.

“If you have a major recession going on. It’s even more important because it’s going make it that much harder for a person with a disability to get a job. They’re usually the last being considered, and when people are being let go, they’re often the first to go,” Kesteloot said.

He recommends improving job skills and education programs for people with disabilities, especially those with visually impairments.

Meyer, who is deaf, speaks and signs simultaneously while the text of the report is spelled out across the screen in close-captioning. With video.

(Photo from WLS/ABC-TV in Chicago)

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Ben Adler says Sarah Palin has not backed up her promises with any agenda designed to help people with disabilities. An excerpt:

There are plenty of ways, from IDEA funding to expanded health coverage to Community Choice, that Palin could promise to serve the interests of people with disabilities. But so far Palin’s pledge to lead on disability issues because of her personal connection to the community has not been developed into more than mere rhetoric. And unless she specifies what exactly she would do for disabled children as vice-president, she risks creating the impression that all she is really seeking with that rhetoric is political reward.