Action Alert: THIS WEEK Support Long Term Services and Supports in Health Care Reform

Community NOW Advocacy Day

Thursday, October 8

 

It is up to YOU to tell Congress Long-Term Services and Supports MUST be included in Health Care Reform. We urgently need a strong and visible presence on Capitol Hill of disability and aging community advocates to make sure Congress does not strip these provisions from the bill.

Join your fellow disability advocates to make sure the Community First Choice Option and the CLASS Act make it into the final health care reform bill.  Opponents of long term services and supports reforms are working hard against us! 

For a document that was just leaked to us on what one large long term care insurance company is doing to oppose the CLASS Act Download Genworth leak.

How to Participate

Action on the Hill:  Join Advocates from across the disability community Thursday, October 8 at 1:00 pm Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 430

Learn about the Bill and Visit your Senator's Offices to Drop off Information on the CFC Option and the CLASS Pla (Download Community Now info)

Call-In Day: Phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or use Families USA's toll-free number 1(800) 828-0498 . A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request or go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm to find your Senator’s contact information.

Feel free to use this script when calling:

Hello (say your name and where you are calling from).  I’m calling as a member of the disability community to ask the Senator to pass health care reform that retains both the CLASS Act and the Community First Choice Option. These bills work together to control costs and increase choice in health care by improving access to long-term services and supports.  Thank you.

Visit Local Senate Offices: Bring this message to your Senators in an office near you.  Find your Senator’s home offices on their websites (available through http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm ).  Visit them with your story and make sure their state staff pass the message along.

Background

The Community First Choice (CFC) Option was proposed by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) as a way to get the key provisions of the Community Choice Act in the health care reform bill.  The option would encourage states to provide Medicaid home and community based attendant services (rather than require them as the CCA would do). The CFC Option would be a major step in helping to end Medicaid's institutional bias.  The CFC Option is part of the Chairman’s Mark in the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill that is currently being marked up.

The Community Living Assistance Supports and Services (CLASS) Act (also called the CLASS Plan) would create a national voluntary long term care insurance program.  It was developed to help people better prepare for their long term care needs and to help take pressure off of the Medicaid program.  The CLASS Act is in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee's version of the health care reform bill.

Unfortunately, the long term care insurance industry has recently launched a full scale attack on the CLASS plan (despite the fact that it will reduce the federal deficit by $58 billion)

Please encourage your staff, volunteers, and any other advocates for improved home and community based services to attend this critical event, and please forward this alert to others.

Click here to RSVP for the event.  (If you have never set up a Google account, you may be asked to do so before viewing the RSVP form.  It only takes about 15 seconds to set it up.)  It is very important for us to know how many people to expect for this event, so we strongly encourage you to RSVP.  But if you can't RSVP, please come anyway!

If you have any questions or are having trouble with the RSVP form, please contact me at acosta@thedpc.org . 

Thank you in advance for your support.

Comments

[Carol J.Thompson - Polio survivor]

For the life of me, I cannot understand why our elected would consider NOT voting on behalf of us, and to pass health care reform that retains both the CLASS Act and the Community First Choice Option. These bills work together to control costs and increase choice in health care by improving access to long-term services and supports.

Until these acts pass, long-term services and supports, and care will continue to be marginal, seriously fragmented, and flawed, as well as continue on at the whim of many for-profit vendors "on the street," and lack the consistency, and professional expertise that we all need.

We are not dead! We care, and we are concerned. What has transpired the past 10 years has exhausted many of us.

[Roseanna Ellis]

Thank you for caring! I'm disabled, and worry about what I'm go9ng to do when I can no longer take care of myself. It's already hard to keep on working and supporting myself with my disability. I can't get any help with housing or support or even food stamps, and I don't want to just sit in my "room" and go on Welfare!