Updates from ADAPTers In the Field:
DePearle: Long Term Services and Supports NOT to be Included in Health Care Reform
Received 4/27/09 12:20 pm :
500 ADAPT activists from throughout the US including 50 Texans are lined up outside the Whitehouse calling for President Obama to include the Community Choice Act and long term services and supports in his health care reform proposals.
10 ADAPT activists are now meeting with Obama Health Care Czar Nancy Ann DeParle.
Updates to come!
Then at 1:10 pm:
100 people are chained to the White House fence after President Obama's Health Care Czar Nancy Ann DeParle stated with no reservation that long term services and supports WILL NOT be in health care reform. She told 10 ADAPT activists that they can't do it in the timeframe set and that we would have to live with the institutional bias.
Arrests are imminent!
First-hand accounts reported to the JFA Moderator at 2:45 pm:
Approximately 100 ADAPT activists were arrested today after being fired up by a disappointing meeting with White House officials. At the meeting with the ADAPT activists were Jeff Crowley, Valerie Jarrett, Nancy DeParle and Henry Claypoole (his first day on the job). Their message was consistent "CCA will not be included in this year's Health Care Reform" and "You'll have to live with the institutional bias." Tell that to those who are dying in institutions! ADAPT activists give Obama a "D" in disability issues for his first 100 days for "Dissing the Disability Community" like this.
For ABC coverage of the action see
Police Arresting Angry Members of the Disabled Community Who Are Picketing White House
by Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/police-arrestin.html
Photos Below Taken outside the White House by Sarah Peterson, JFA Moderator (4/27/09):
Teddy Fitzmurice Demands Respect from the Administration outside the White House on Monday.
ADAPTers Brave the Heat to demand Choice from White House Officials.
Arrests, tickets and fines didn't dampen the energy of the ADAPTERS as the lined up after the action.
To Whom It May Concern:
I was saddened to hear that long term services and supports are not included in
the new health care reform.I hope Nancy De
Parle, and other pertinent Health Care Officials reconsider this important decision.
Truly,
Deborah Exum
Posted by: Debra Exum | April 27, 2009 at 03:59 PM
This is typical of the Obama administration. Too many czars - but too little help for those who really need it. This story will probably get little or no coverage due to other breaking national and world developments. Nothing changes - only the person sitting at the Resolute Desk.
Posted by: Patricia Sprofera | April 27, 2009 at 04:04 PM
To Whom It May Concern:
I believe and know that People with Disabilities have always been put on hold,and last to receive pertinent services to stay alive. What is more important than
human life and quality of life? If anyone has received an injury or birth defect which hinders his daily quality of life, they would know it is about trying to live as normal a life as one can.Don't all of us
deserve to live life at it's upmost?.Health Care Reform needs to include long term services and supports, otherwise, who knows how long it many take and lives lost.
Deborah Exum
Posted by: Debra Exum | April 27, 2009 at 04:10 PM
How about letting them wait for someone to get them outa bed, get a shower, get fed, and go on with everyday INDEPENDENT living? Hmmm. What a concept!
Posted by: lisbeth west | April 27, 2009 at 04:31 PM
Call it a Community Choice Bailout and it'll be done in less than a week. No one will read it either! What about the fellow appointed by the Obama administration to oversee disability issues? No where to be seen, I bet.
Posted by: Chris | April 27, 2009 at 04:32 PM
Yes, I've tried to raise questions for this "accountability" administration (federal and state), to find some help from someone, before I'm dead. No one is there. Pitiful that we have these millions of "charities", wasting millions of dollars, and there is no charity to be found anywhere.
Posted by: Ralph | April 27, 2009 at 04:39 PM
If accurate, I would not take Nancy's comments to the bank just yet. There is a long legislative process before us as we move toward health care reform. The debate is just beginning and the pressure to achieve our goals needs to intensify. Everything is on the table at this time.
Posted by: Peter Thomas | April 27, 2009 at 06:02 PM
SHOCKING! The nation rants and raves against the torture of prisoners taken after 9/11, yet the U.S. continues to harm, neglect, and kill it's own citizens, "the least of those. . . ," never even thinking of the slaughtered thousands from the Iraq War. This goes on and on.
Until the POTUS decides to rid America of the for-profit health care/human care interlopers making money with Congressional approval, our nation can only sink further into the entropic, downward spiral it's in now.
Enough harming humans! We demand change!
Posted by: Carol Thompson | April 27, 2009 at 07:00 PM
Befor, it was fighting a known enemy of choice... Now it is more like being jilted by a lover. How sad to be betrayed by the one we supported and voted for!!!
Real Choice! It is our civil right. We came to celebrate change and we were met with the same ol' crap. FREE OUR PEOPLE!
Posted by: Daniese McMullin-Powell | April 27, 2009 at 09:11 PM
I have been a strong supporter of the Obama campaign/administration. However, this is truly disgusting. Our country is finally uncovering atrocities of tortures against detainees and orders to Veteran's Administration doctors to withold diagnosis/treatment of PTSD. When will we overcome our denial of the effects the Bush holocaust has had on People With Disabilities? When will we see an investigation of how it has been (still is) being carried out?
Posted by: Jane Rodriguez | April 27, 2009 at 09:19 PM
I sincerely hope that this was just a very very very poor choice of words... if it wasn't, then I too am extremely disappointed with the Obama administration on this! I would hate to have to remove the Obama/Biden stickers from my car... like everyone else, I gleefully embraced Obama's professed support for the disability community... but things like this make me seriously question his sincerity. I hope with all my being that he is in fact an ally in our struggle and that the time just hasn't yet come for inclusion of the CCA in the national health care agenda. Since the development of Obama's health care agenda is still in its infancy, we need to keep up the fight for the CCA!
Posted by: Joe VanderVeer | April 27, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Go ADAPT!! As a Democratic voter, I voted for Obama. I am so disappointed with this news.
I feel the Community Choice Act (CCA) legislation is a civil rights issue as proven in the Supreme Court decision OLMSTEAD v. L.C. (98-536) 527 U.S. 581 (1999).
In Pennsylvania, the unions and the disability community are working together to increase and improve home and community based services. Direct care workers would much prefer to be employed for individuals in their own homes than in institutional settings. We need ability to offer them comparable living wages and benefits.
According to recent figures, it's three to four times less expensive and much more cost effective to provide attendant services in our homes than in nursing homes and other institutional care settings. Most people don't know that the average nursing home resident only receives 1.0 to 2.5 hours of actual one-on-one care per day. Instead, many people have this false perception that folks incarcerated in nursing homes and other institutional care settings receive 24 hour care 365-1/4 days a year. This just isn't the case!
We need to support SB 683/HB 1670 and get the Community Choice Act (CCA) legislation passed now!
GO TEAM GO!
Posted by: Kathy H. | April 28, 2009 at 12:02 AM
Here's some good reading on the subject of independence:
www.declarationforindependence.org
Please read, comment, and forward the site to your friends!
Posted by: Mitchell | April 28, 2009 at 08:42 AM
The Awesome ADAPTers ! Thanks, we are so proud of you !
Posted by: Clifton D. Croan | April 28, 2009 at 03:30 PM
I am not surprised in the least with the decision. In his first 42 days in office, President Death signed executive orders that would end the lives of millions of unborn human beings. Additionally, his administration and the congress have shown that euthanasia and the "duty to die" for the incuarbly disabled is a goal that we will see more of as resources become scarce in the impending social chaos created from the financial meltdown. Add any other crisis (like pandemics) and the process will only accelerate. Being disabled only makes me a slow moving target.
Posted by: Dick | April 29, 2009 at 01:38 PM
I was dissappointed in missing the demonstration on the national news. They generally replay events, but not events relating to the people with disabilities community. We unveiled statues at our Capitol in March, invited the national press to cover the statue for the blind. Not a soul from the national press covered the event. Denny at [email protected]. We e-maild the information about the Washington demonstration today to our lists.
Posted by: Denny R. Wood, President, Florida Paraplegic Association, Inc. | April 29, 2009 at 03:20 PM