From 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.

As the nation prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act next week, the New York Times presents disturbing evidence that cash-strapped states are dismantling home-care services that have been helping elderly people and those with disabilities to live in their communities.

Since the start of the recession, at least 25 states and the District of Columbia have made sharp cuts in programs that, ironically, have been demonstrated to save states money because they keep people out of nursing homes.

“The situation is grim, and it’s safe to say that present trends are expected to continue,” said JoAnn Lamphere, the director of state government relations for health and long-term care for AARP. “Nearly every state has proposed cuts of some sort to Medicaid. Some might seem small, but it’s death by a thousand slashes.”

… Bruce Goldberg, director of the Oregon Department of Human Services, said the agency did not have an estimate for how many of the people losing home care would end up in assisted-living facilities or in nursing homes – or, if they did, how the state would pay for them.

“We’re in new territory,” Dr. Goldberg said. “Long-term care is a cobbled-together system with many holes, and they just got deeper.”

From National Public Radio/Kaiser Health News:

In 2005, when Congress funded a $1.3 billion initiative to move people out of nursing homes and long-term-care facilities, it was anticipated that more than 37,000 moves would be completed by the year 2013. But state data collected by Kaiser Health News shows that only 5,774 people have been moved to date.

Among the difficulties that states are reporting: problems finding affordable housing, resistance from nursing homes, and stringent federal rules that govern who qualifies and what types of community settings are permitted.

Georgia had hoped to move 1,312 people by 2011, but had completed moves for only 221 people through the end of last year. The state has since cut its 2011 target by more than half.

The new health care law adds $900 million in new funding for the program, called Money Follows the Person, extends it until 2016, and loosens eligibility rules.

From AP/USA Today, ABC News, Politico.com,  Washington Post:

Authorities say they have arrested 91 people who gathered at the White House, many in wheelchairs, to protest what they termed the administration’s failure to provide sufficient support for the Community Choice Act. The legislation would allow people with long-term disabilities to use federal funding to pay for attendant care in their own homes rather than just in nursing facilities.

An estimated 400 people came from across the country for the event, sponsored by the national disability advocacy group ADAPT, and some reportedly chained themselves to the White House fence. An estimated 200 ADAPT protesters also gathered outside the American Hospital Association’s annual meeting in Washington, waving protest signs that read “Stop the nursing homes!”

A White House spokesperson said the president supports CCA, but said it “hasn’t been decided” whether the measure will be included in the health care reform effort.

“This is about choosing to live in our homes in our communities instead of nursing homes,” says Milagros Franco, from the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled.

Related posts here.

From the New York Times:

“A little-remarked but potentially transformational provision” of the new health care law is the Class Act, which provides for people with long-term disabilities, writes Paula Span.

The measure sets up the first national government-run long-term care insurance program, allowing workers to pay into a fund that would pay a stipend if they need care. Because the program is set up to provide cash payments, it will allow recipients to choose the kind of assistance that best suits their needs.

Advocates for seniors and people with disabilities lobbied for the measure, which they say will help people stay in their own homes instead of being forced into nursing facilities. The private insurance industry opposed it, saying it will be too costly to be supported by premiums.

Earlier posts here.

From the Lawrence [KS] Journal-World, WDAF Kansas City, KWCH-TV Kansas City:

Kansas disability rights advocates pleaded with state lawmakers to roll back a planned 10 percent cut in Medicaid funding, saying that the $22.7 million reduction would put the lives of vulnerable people at risk.

At a Capitol news conference Friday, advocates said the proposed cuts would end up costing more because they would force the state to place people in more expensive nursing homes.

“It’s just mind-boggling that we would cut those services only to force people into institutions which are going to cost taxpayers more dollars,” said Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas.

He said policymakers don’t understand that the cuts “are real and are devastating people’s lives, and without restoring those cuts, it’s only going to get worse.”

In a column in the Oakland [CA] Tribune, Washington insiders Cokie and Steven V. Roberts call for approval of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act. The measure, part of the health care bill, would allow workers to pay into a fund that would then pay a stipend if they become disabled.

CLASS, they say, could “make all the difference” for families facing the economic and emotional stress of long-term disability. It could allow an elderly person to pay for care at home instead of being forced to go into a nursing facility, or for a family caregiver to get help at home that would allow them to keep their day job. Presently, the Roberts’ say, many elderly and disabled people must impoverish themselves in order to qualify for government assistance. An excerpt:

How can pushing people into nursing homes be better than letting them stay in their houses? As a caller to a public radio program on the CLASS plan asked, “Why not try something where I can exercise my own responsibility for my future?”

Why not, indeed?

Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. Steven V. Roberts appears regularly on CNN, PBS and the ABC radio network, and hosts Voice of America’s “The Roberts Report.”