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(WASHINGTON DC) Angered by a
President who promised freedom from institutions, then cut the funding needed
to achieve that freedom, 500 ADAPT activists and allies are marching to the
White House to protest President George W. Bush’s FY 2004 and 2005 Medicaid
budgets. The “No More Stolen Lives” march is scheduled to reach the White
House at sundown on Sunday March 21, and will be followed by a vigil for all
the people currently confined in nursing homes and other institutions by
administration cuts and the institutionally biased Medicaid policy. Marchers
are also calling for a meeting with the President, who has never met with
members of the disability community.
“Disability issues are not partisan. Four years ago when President Bush
issued his New Freedom Initiative, and his Executive Order mandating
implementation of the US Supreme Court Olmstead decision, we believed him,
“said Steve Verriden, Wisconsin ADAPT Organizer. “But here we are four years
later, facing the worst Medicaid cuts in history, which will without a doubt
keep people illegally confined in nursing homes and other institutions, and
force even more people into those settings. This loss of personal freedom,
and all the President’s empty promises are unconscionable because they mean
more stolen lives”
President Bush’s New Freedom Initiative clearly articulated that people with
disabilities have the right to access all parts of their community and the
American way of life. It directed all federal departments to assess and plan
removal of barriers that prevent the disabled from having that access.
The Olmstead Executive Order promised older and disabled Americans home and
community based services and supports, instead of the forced
institutionalization that results from the institutional bias in the nation’s
Medicaid program. States must pay for nursing home services, but are not
required to pay for the same services in a person’s own home and
community.
“The President’s rhetoric in his New Freedom Initiative and his Olmstead
Executive Order sounds like the typical self-serving, empty political promise
in light of his promotion of caps and cuts in Medicaid,” said Bob Liston,
Montana ADAPT Organizer.
As fiscally beleaguered states continue to cut optional Medicaid services,
like limited in-home care programs that some of the states provide, the
result will be more people having no choice other than the nursing homes that
are mandated by Medicaid. Even if currently proposed legislation that would
allow people choice in where they receive long term care services and
supports is passed, the administration’s budget proposals would effectively
render the gains from that legislation moot.
The legislative measures, all with significant bi-partisan support, and
support from over 700 national, state and local organizations, include
MiCASSA, the Medicaid Community-based Attendant Services and Supports Act (S.
971; H.R. 2032), and The Money Follows the Person Act (S.1394). Both measures
counter the current Medicaid institutional bias by providing people with
disabilities, old and young, with the choice to receive their long term care
services and supports in their own homes and communities, near friends and
loved ones.
“The people leading our march will be people who have had years of their
lives stolen by the Medicaid institutional bias," said Cassie Jones,
Philadelphia ADAPT Organizer. “We want the President to hear loud and clear
that we are tired of having to wait for our freedom, and we demand an end to
the institutional bias. We want No More Stolen Lives!”
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