From ADAPT (10/15/09):
ADAPT SETS
CNN STRAIGHT ON CCA; Moves Civil Rights Enforcement Forward in Southeast
By Amber
Smock
All week,
our action was covered by various media outlets around Atlanta and the nation, but
the elephant in the room remained our building neighbor: CNN. Although our
action has been taking place right in CNN’s backyard, we had not gotten one
inch of coverage on our issues.
In fact,
back on August 19, CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta ran a report on
health care reform and disability. He referred to the Community Choice Act
(CCA) as a bill that would improve access to hospitals. As any disability
activist knows, that’s dead wrong. CCA is about improving access to living in
the community for people who receive Medicaid. ADAPTers wrote to Dr. Gupta to
make an on-air correction, but he failed to respond.
Read the full
Report about ADAPT's protest at CNN yesterday!
http://www.adapt.org/freeourpeople/atlanta09/report05.php
Find out all about
the Atlanta Action at
http://www.adapt.org/freeourpeople/atlanta09
Press Release
From ADAPT (10/14/09)
ADAPT Confronts CNN at CNN HQ on Freedom for People with Disabilities
Who: ADAPT, National grassroots disability rights organization
What: Occupying CNN offices at CNN Headquarters in Atlanta
When: NOW (9:30 a.m. Eastern time, and continuing)
Where: CNN HQ in CNN Center, Atlanta
Why: Get the Facts Straight on the Community Choice Act!
For nearly 20 years, ADAPT has been fighting to eliminate the institutional
bias that forces seniors and people with disabilities into nursing facilities
and other institutions. With very rare exceptions, this issue has been ignored
by the major national media.
Even now, when the country is discussing the need to reform health care, the
national media has overwhelmingly failed to recognize this critical issue.
Even worse, CNN got it wrong! In August of this year, Dr. Sanjay Gupta from
CNN mentioned the Community Choice Act (S683/HR1670) during a segment on health
care reform, but he stated that the legislation addressed the need for
accessibility in medical settings. ADAPT contacted Dr. Gupta and CNN asking
them to correct their inaccuracy and follow our efforts while we are here in
Atlanta. They did not.
It is clear that the media plays a significant role in shaping American
politics and public policy. We understand that if we want to change public
policy, we need the media to understand this issue and call for change. ADAPT
members have tried everything we can think of to raise awareness of the
institutional bias and alternatives to institutionalization. Literally hundreds
of us have been arrested. We have shut down streets, taken over buildings, and
even marched 144 miles from Philadelphia to Washington, DC!
Because we are a grass-roots organization, ADAPT doesn't have the expensive
public relations firms that can "place" our story in the national
media. So ADAPT members have come directly to CNN's national headquarters to
educate the network on our issues. We are here to ask CNN that:
* Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his colleagues at CNN meet with ADAPT to learn about
the institutional bias, the Community Choice Act (S683/HR1670), and
consumer-directed/community-based alternatives to institutionalization;
* Dr. Gupta correct his inaccurate report about the Community Choice Act;
* Dr. Gupta and his colleagues at CNN acknowledge in their reporting that
there are disability rights and civil rights issues embedded within healthcare
issues;
* Dr. Gupta and his colleagues at CNN report about the efforts of the
disability community to eliminate the institutional bias and give people a REAL
CHOICE in how and where they receive long term services and supports; and
* Dr. Gupta and his colleagues at CNN report about community-based and
consumer-directed models of assistance that are more cost-effective and give
seniors and people with disabilities real control over their lives.
From ADAPT (10/13/09)
Disabled advocates move to Sam Nunn building; protest HHS
By Christian Boone and Kristi E. Swartz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A group of disabled advocates who forced their way into the State Capitol on
Monday spent Tuesday morning in the courtyard of the Sam Nunn Federal Center,
again calling for better long-term care options.
It was their second stop of the day, having started at 9:30 a.m. at
Centennial Park. At 1 p.m. they will meet with Gov. Sonny Perdue's chief of
staff.
For full story and more links go to:
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/disabled-advocates-move-to-160840.html From ADAPT (10/12/09):
ADAPT Visits GA Governor at Home; Demands "Home" for People in
Institutions
WHO: 500 members of ADAPT, nation's largest grassroots disability rights
organization
WHAT: Went to Georgia Governor's Office
WHERE: 206 Washington Street on Capitol Square
WHEN: 9 a.m. Monday, October 12, 2009
WHY: To demand that Gov. Sonny Perdue stop denying civil rights to older and
disabled Georgians and start following the law (ADA) and finally comply with
the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v. L.C. and E.W.
In May of 1999 the Supreme Court found the state of Georgia guilty of
segregation and discrimination against Georgians with disabilities because it
forced people with disabilities (and older Georgians) into nursing homes, state
hospitals and institutions, rather than serving them in the community.
In Governor Perdue's first term, he acknowledged the state had made little
effort to provide community- based services for people with disabilities, and
promised to "make alternatives to institutional care a priority by making
Georgia's waiting lists for home and community based services a state funding
priority." He further promised to cut the waiting lists for services and
the bureaucratic red tape involved in receiving state services, and to give
families and communities a voice in the monitoring of services.
From 2002 to 2007, the percent of nursing facility residents under age 65
grew from 11.6% (7,211 people) to 14.2% (9,273 people). Of the approximately
230,000 non-institutionalized Georgians with disabilities age 5+ who require
daily assistance, only about 17% of them get any assistance through the state's
Home and Community-Based Services system. And recently, the state's Division of
Aging has announced that due to budget cuts it is discontinuing its
participation in the federal Money Follows the Person (MFP) program, a program
created in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 that allows people to move from
more expensive institutional settings back into more cost effective community
settings.
"It's a shame that ten years after Olmstead, more people are going into
nursing homes than ever before," said Bernard Baker, an organizer with
Atlanta ADAPT. "Living in the community isn't a privilege, it's a civil
right, and we are being denied our civil rights."
ADAPT Demands that Governor Perdue:
1. Meet with ADAPT;
2. Appoint an Olmstead "Czar" to divert from nursing homes people
who wish to remain in the community, and transition others already in nursing
facilities back into the community;
3. Adequately fund community-based services so Georgia complies with
Olmstead and the ADA;
4. Freeze institutional funding at current levels and work with advocates to
rebalance long-term services and supports funding so the majority is spent on
home and community services;
5. Modernize Georgia's Nurse Practice Act to allow trained attendants to
perform health maintenance tasks;
6. Fund community organizations to identify & assist people in
institutions to return to community;
7. Issue an Executive Order requiring the Division of Aging to keep
implementing MFP, and remove the "cost share" from Community Care
Services Program services; and
8. Demonstrate leadership by publicly urging other southern state governors
to develop and implement Olmstead plans and policies in accordance with the ADA
and the Olmstead decision.
From ADAPT (10/11/09):
ADAPT
Rally at King Center in Atlanta Sets Tone for Week of Olmstead Direct Action
Atlanta, GA--- Today, for the first time in 43 years, Delores Bates celebrated
her birthday outside institutional walls. She turned 60 years old by speaking
at the King Center surrounded by 500 ADAPT activists from Georgia and across
the country who all sang Happy Birthday and celebrated her freedom with her.
The fact that Georgia kept Delores institutionalized most of her life, in
violation of her civil rights, is one of the reasons ADAPT is in Atlanta this
week.
“Bodie” is another reason ADAPT has returned to the city where it first
launched the fight to give people a choice to live in the community instead of
being forced into nursing facilities and institutions. Bodie loves the
outdoors and he has been waiting 52 years, since he was ten years old, to be
able to go outdoors without having to ask permission. He has been moved
from one institution to another without anyone ever so much as consulting him.
People keep promising him he will move to a house in the community, yet 52
years later, Bodie still lives in an institution.
More than 500 people marched today from the CNN Center, past historic Ebenezer
Baptist Church, to the King Center for a civil rights rally. Invited speaker
Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t show, but Delores and Bodie did, and so did
Lois Curtis and Sue Jamieson. Curtis is the surviving named plaintiff in
the historic Olmstead lawsuit where she and Elaine Wilson sued the state of
Georgia for the right to move from a state hospital to live in the community.
Sue Jamieson is the attorney who represented Curtis and Wilson and won the
landmark decision before the U.S. Supreme Court where the court found that
Georgia’s practice of inappropriately institutionalizing people with
disabilities who could live in the community represented illegal segregation
and discrimination.
“Ten years after the Olmstead decision, and twenty years after ADAPT first
launched the fight for older and disabled Americans to have a real choice in
where they receive their long-term services and supports, the state of Georgia
continues to thumb its nose at the law, “ Said Mark Johnson of Georgia ADAPT.
“The state has never adequately funded community services, and is now cutting
them, despite the promises made by Gov. Sonny Perdue when he first took
office. In fact, since the Governor first made those promises, nursing
home admissions of people under 65 have grown, not decreased.”
Like other states across the country, Georgia’s failure to develop and
implement an action oriented Olmstead plan with goals and timelines to reduce unnecessary
segregation of older and disabled Georgians has left it seriously out of
compliance with both the Olmstead Supreme Court decision, and the Americans
with Disabilities Act. State differences in compliance have presented the best
argument for national legislation like the Community Choice Act which would
guarantee residents in every state the right to choose to receive long-term
services and supports in their own homes and communities.
Startlingly, the King Center, an undeniable symbol of freedom, sits next door
to a nursing facility, a concrete reminder of lost years and lost lives.
At the conclusion of the rally, Lois Curtis led the crowd in a chant as people
gazed at the adjoining property, “Free our brothers, free our sisters, free our
people, now!” ADAPT will spend the coming week in Atlanta working on exactly
that.
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