Monday, March 22, 2004
MEDIA ADVISORY
ADAPT to HHS Sec. Thompson
and CMS Admin McClellan- "We're lying cuz you're lying!"
WHO: 500 members of ADAPT (250 use wheelchairs), the nations largest grassroots disability rights organization.
WHAT: Staging an early morning lie-in where wheelchair users will slide out of their chairs and crawl into sleeping bags on foam mats, and where they will also be served breakfast in bed
WHERE: Around the perimeter and on the plaza of the HHS (Health and Human Services) Bldg. on Independence Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets
WHEN: Beginning at 6:30a.m., continuing indefinitely until demands are met
WHY: The momentum to reverse the institutional bias in the nations
long term care system by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has
ground to a halt. Thousands of people with disabilities and older Americans are
STILL unnecessarily being forced into nursing homes and other institutions
because of the inaction of HHS coupled with the Administrations proposed cuts
to and caps on Medicaid. ADAPT will tell HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson
and CMS Administrator Mark McClellan that ADAPT Is Lying, Because
You're Lying!
To restart the momentum to
abolish the Medicaid institutional bias, ADAPT wants;
Thompsons and McClennans
public support for passage of S. 971, the Medicaid Community-based
Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA), and S.1394, the Money
Follows the Person Act.
HHS development of rules,
regulations and procedures that will be an incentive for states to
implement a money follows the person process.
HHS to send a Dear State
Medicaid Director letter to assure states they can implement a money
follows the person strategy now, without legislation, and encourage
them to utilize that approach to move people out of institutional
settings now.
HHS to develop rules,
regulations and procedures that will make consumer direction part of all home
and community service programs including Home Health.
HHS to make the process of accessing MDS data by the states easier (specifically question Q1a information), AS WELL AS a process that involves community organizations and supports people living in the most integrated setting.
HHS to develop and implement
a demonstration project that allows Medicare Home Health funds to be used to
provide less medical personal attendant services that ALLOW a person
to live in the most integrated setting.
HHS to develop rules,
regulations and procedures for a public input process for all waivers
including 1115 that assures statewide, public hearings before submittal
and approval of waivers that effect the Medicaid long term service and
support system.
HHS to direct AND SUPPORT
HHS OCR to actively pursue and resolve state and individual violations of the
U.S. Supreme Courts Olmstead decision.
HHS Sec. Thompson and CMS
Administrator McClellan to meet with ADAPT members assembled on the
plaza to discuss ways to implement the above issues and establish an
ongoing meetings timetable to assure accountability.
There will be multiple photo
opportunities (200 empty wheelchairs near street, people in sleeping
bags on foam mats blanketing the HHS plaza and surrounding the building, nearly
500 people having breakfast in bed on the mats, etc.) as well as opportunities
to talk to many people from at least 30 states who have survived warehousing in
institutional settings and who would rather be arrested or even die than ever
go to a nursing home again.
FOR MORE INFORMATION on
ADAPT visit our website at:
Or Contact:
Bob Kafka 512/431-4085
Marsha Katz 406/544-9504