From Talk Radio News Service (with audio):

In a webcast conference call hosted by the Democratic National Committee yesterday, disability advocates took Sen. John McCain to task for his opposition to the Community Choice Act. The act would allow people with disabilities to use their federal benefits to pay for services at home or in places of their choice.

Marca Bristo, former chair of the National Council on Disability, said McCain has opposed the legislation for years. “Sadly, he has refused to listen to us on one of the most critical issues to our community: the right to live with dignity in homes of our choosing rather than to be forced into nursing homes or other institutions.” Such living arrangements, she said, deprive people with disabilities of their liberty and dignity.

There is talk, she said, that McCain may now change his position. “We say: What took him so long?”

Bristo was joined by Bob Kafka, national organizer for ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), a national advocacy group that employs civil disobedience to draw attention to its cause. Links here and here.

The call came on the eve of a non-partisan forum on disability issues for the presidential candidates, to be held this afternoon in Columbus, Ohio. McCain is expected to participate by satellite hookup. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is scheduled to represent Barack Obama, who is campaigning in Europe. Sen. Harkin was an architect of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law 18 years ago today.

Information about listening to the forum via Internet is here.

From the New York Times, [UK] Times:

A maverick German politician has helped a healthy 79-year-old woman to kill herself, prompting a criminal investigation and sparking a new national debate over assisted suicide.

Bettina Schardt was neither sick nor dying, but had difficulty getting around, no family and few friends. She feared that she might need to move into a nursing home.

Ms. Schardt’s suicide — and Mr. Kusch’s energetic publicizing of it — have set off a national furor over the limits on the right to die, in a country that has struggled with this issue more than most because of the Nazi’s euthanizing of at least 100,000 mentally disabled and incurably ill people.

… The larger lesson of Ms. Schardt’s solitary death may have to do with the way Germany treats its old.

“The fear of nursing homes among elderly Germans is far greater than the fear of terrorism or the fear of losing your job,” said Eugen Brysch, the director of the German Hospice Foundation. “Germany must confront this fear, because fear, as we have seen, is a terrible adviser.”

From the New York Times, a feature on 20-year-old Sam Stabiner, who lives among elderly people in a Manhattan nursing home. His parents would like him to live among people his own age, but could not find a place for young adults that could provide appropriate care for Sam’s complex medical needs.

As medical advances have allowed patients who might have died as children to survive into adulthood, the patients are falling into a void in a health care system that has yet to develop institutions for the young and “medically fragile.”

… about 8,000 people under age 30 are among roughly 1.4 million nursing home residents, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“This is a problem that has gone largely unrecognized and is only going to grow,” said Dr. Edwin F. Simpser, the chief medical officer at St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children, the largest provider of intensive rehabilitation and specialized care for severely ill and disabled children in New York.

Attorney says she could die if she’s sent to a nursing home

From the Tulsa [Oklahoma] World:

Lindsey Easton, of Glenpool, Oklahoma, has lived at home most of her life under the care of her mother and 16 hours a day of skilled nursing care provided by a Medicaid program. Easton has infantile onset Pompe’s Disease, and is dependent on a ventilator and feeding tubes.

Easton’s Medicaid coverage ended when she turned 21 in September. She was subsequently denied coverage by Oklahoma’s Advantage Waiver program when it was determined that her care would exceed the program’s cost cap. She is now challenging that decision in court, arguing that the state’s action is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

Easton has led a full and engaging life as an avid reader, Girl Scout and co-valedictorian of her graduating class at Glenpool High School in 2005. … Housing her in a nursing home could lead to medical complications, extended hospitalizations and premature death, according to her legal brief, which cites statements from Easton’s doctor and nursing case manager.

… Laurie Easton, Lindsey’s mother, said she’d never put her daughter in a nursing home and is turning to the courts because she sees no other option. She has had to fight many bureaucratic battles over the years, she said.

“We’re just normal people trying to do the right thing,” she said. “We love our kids.”

From the Nashville Tennessean:

The state of Tennessee ranks last in the nation in funding for nursing home alternatives. As a result, nursing homes have remained virtually the only option for Tennesseans who are elderly or have disabilities and cannot function entirely on their own.

AARP and other advocacy groups have been urging the state for years to provide more balance. This year, Gov. Phil Bredesen has gotten on board, inspired by his 86-year-old mother. While she occasionally needs assistance, she is generally healthy and has no intention of moving from her home, he says.

Bredesen has called for shifting more of the Medicaid dollars Tennessee receives into community and home care.

… As it is now, access to community and home care in Tennessee is fragmented and fraught with red tape — just the wrong note when the patient in question is elderly and needs help. There are individual programs around the state that can show how it should be done, if only the legislature and health-care community will take the challenge.

The governor’s bill should be just the beginning to put this state on the right path — homeward.

Related columns:

• Enable people to live where they thrive
• Change must be more than shift of funds

By Mike Ervin in the Modesto [California] Bee:

The Bush administration is going after poor people who want to get out of nursing homes.

Earlier this month, the Bush administration put forth new restrictions on Medicaid funding … The restrictions are in what the government calls “targeted case management.” This area covers people who use various federal programs and who need help coordinating these services.

One group of Medicaid recipients on which this surely will have a severe negative impact are nursing home residents trying to transition into community living support situations.

… When our government reduces options for poor people stuck in nursing homes, something is seriously wrong in Washington.

From the Boston Globe:

Hundreds of Massachusetts residents with intellectual disabilities will leave nursing homes for more independent settings under a settlement announced by state officials yesterday.

The agreement is part of the resolution of a 10-year-old lawsuit on behalf of 1,600 people, in which disability advocates argued that the nursing home placements violated federal mandates. Many of the plaintiffs had been placed in nursing homes even though they are significantly younger than the senior citizens the facilities are designed to serve, reducing their quality of life and contribution to society, the suit contended.