For Immediate Release:

April 28, 2009 (Tuesday)

For Information Contact:
Bruce Darling 585-370-6690
Marsha Katz 406-544-9504

http://www.adapt.org

99 Arrested as ADAPT Blocks Independence and Constitution Avenues on the Hill, then Crawls Up the Capitol Steps

Washington, D.C. — ADAPT, the nation’s largest cross-disability, grassroots disability rights organization, took the fight to include long-term services in Health Care Reform up to Capitol Hill today. On Monday, Obama administration officials made it clear that the administration was not going to provide leadership on getting long-term services included in health care reform, saying it was up to Congress.

“I guess what happened at the White House kind of got us wondering who is leading the country, the President or Congress,” said Bob Kafka, ADAPT Organizer from Austin, Texas. “Sad to say but President Obama gets a D on disability rights after his first hundred days. Throughout his campaign and currently on his website he promises to support independent, community-based living for Americans with disabilities by enforcing the Community Choice Act, which would allow Americans with significant disabilities the choice of living in their community rather than having to live in a nursing home or other institution. Many of us who voted for him feel angry and betrayed that he isn’t keeping his promise.”

The Community Choice Act (CCA) (S. 683, HB 1670), introduced in March 2009 by Sen. Tom Harkin (IA) and Rep. Danny Davis (IL), would remove what is known as the ‘institutional bias’ in Medicaid. Currently, Medicaid pays for older and disabled people to go to nursing homes and institutions, but won’t pay for the same assistance, generally at a lower cost, in a person’s own home. Many states have limited or no home and community based services with lists that keep people waiting for years in institutions and nursing homes before they have any hope of getting services. Some wait so long they die before their name reaches the top of the list.

“It’s no surprise we decided to have a presence on Capitol Hill today,” said Mark Johnson, ADAPT Organizer from Atlanta, Georgia. “We blocked streets to make it visibly clear that we aren’t going away and we won’t go away until CCA passes or is included in Health Care Reform. Research has shown that people who live in the community are healthier and have fewer secondary conditions. It’s fiscally irresponsible to increase health care costs by not insuring that people have the choice to receive services and supports in their own homes. And it’s bad policy to put all the dollars only into front-end health care, once again denying people with disabilities their civil rights and forcing them to continually be the last people served.”

After police arrested 99 people from both the House and Senate sides of the Capitol, the remaining 400 ADAPT members went to the Capitol, many spilling out of their wheelchairs and crawling up the Capitol steps to hold an impromptu CCA rally, reminiscent of the famous stair crawl on the day the ADA was passed in 1990.

ADAPT winds up its week in Washington on Wednesday by holding a joint rally with SEIU, the fastest growing, largest home care union in the country, with a membership of over 420,000. Sen. Harkin will speak at the rally, as will an ADAPT member and his SEIU attendant. People with disabilities and seniors want workers who are paid a living wage, who have health care benefits, and time off. Supporting a fairly compensated workforce reduces turnover, increases reliability and insures a better trained attendant workforce for those who need assistance in their daily lives.

“After the rally, we will go in teams to visit every member of Congress, asking them to co-sponsor CCA and include long-term services in Health care reform,” said Barb Toomer, ADAPT Organizer from Salt Lake City, Utah. “There will be well over 1000 people visiting Congress on Wednesday from a number of different disability and provider groups, all with the same message: pass CCA and include long-term services.”

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FOR MORE INFORMATION on ADAPT visit our website at http://www.adapt.org

ADAPT Patriarch Bob Kafka

ADAPT activists at Sunday’s “fun run” event

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For Immediate Release: April 27, 2009

For information contact:
Bruce Darling 585-370-6690
Marsha Katz (406) 544-9504
http://www.adapt.org

91 Arrested When ADAPT Told Obama Administration Won’t Support Inclusion of Long Term Services in Health Care Reform

Washington, D.C.— Ten members of ADAPT met with Obama Administration officials in the White House today, and came away disappointed at the lack of commitment from the administration on inclusion of long term services and supports in health care reform. The administration stated that its only commitment currently is to extend insurance to the people who are uninsured, and that the people in nursing homes and institutions would need to continue to wait until an unspecified time in the future when it is proven that the health care reform worked. Angered by that response, 500 ADAPT members immediately stretched out along the White House fence, using handcuffs and chains to secure themselves. The Capitol Police ultimately arrested 91 people.

“This is unequivocally a civil rights issue, and we thought we had a civil rights president,” said Bruce Darling, ADAPT Organizer from Rochester, New York. “He took the oath of office on the Lincoln bible, and has spoken repeatedly about inclusion and integration. But after today, it seems clear that inclusion doesn’t apply to us…to the thousands of people trapped for years behind institution and nursing home walls and those of us who are aging with nursing homes looming in our futures. Instead of the promised “change” we are just getting more of the same old thing.”

Obama officials in the one hour meeting with ADAPT included Nancy-Ann De Parle, Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform, aka the President’s Health Care Czar; Jeff Crowley, Director of Office of National AIDS Policy and an advisor on the administration’s development of disability policies; Henry Claypool, Director of the Office of Disability in Health and Human Services (HHS); and Mike Hash, coordinator of the HHS-White House reform efforts.

“My heart is broken,” said Dawn Russell, ADAPT organizer in Denver, Colorado. “Throughout the Presidential campaign, ADAPT worked hard to educate the Obama campaign. We came to believe in the Obama promise of “change,” and we really believed that President Obama was the person who really would “free our people” from being imprisoned in nursing homes and other institutions. Untold numbers of people have died or been abused waiting for their freedom, and we just got told we aren’t important enough and so we have to keep waiting.”

ADAPT will be making visits to Congress during the week, seeking more co-sponsors for the Community Choice Act, legislation which would give older and disabled Americans the choice to live in their own homes and communities with the services and supports they need. Current Medicaid policy forces people into nursing homes and other institutions in order to get the assistance they need, despite the fact that both the aging and disabled communities have consistently indicated they prefer home and community based services to the generally higher cost institutional services that rob them of control of their lives.

“The President can give millions more people health insurance, but if health care reform doesn’t include long term services and supports, then all the health care in the world won’t keep those people from being forced into nursing homes against their will,” said Linda Anthony, ADAPT Organizer from Pennsylvania.

ADAPT activists protest at the White House gates. Picture by photographer Tom Olin

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