A Message from the Executive Director
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it
is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” -- Thomas Edison
Dear Advocates and Friends,
The past year has been a whirlwind for our community. We
barely had time to celebrate the enactment of the ADA Amendments Act and the
Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act before the election and
inauguration. The NCIL annual conference brought hundreds of people with
disabilities to the front lawn of the Capitol to demand civil and human rights.
The health care debate took center stage and provided an opening to bring
disability issues to the forefront of cultural consciousness. The President has
begun to open doors to our community, providing the possibility that the
independent living philosophy may one day reach the highest levels of American
government.
Our community has been grounded on the sidelines of
American politics for far too long, our voices falling on indifferent,
apathetic ears. There is a perception by the American people that the highly
anticipated transformation of the political atmosphere, the change that
President Obama promised, has not materialized quickly enough. But change has
come. It has come in the form of the invisible: opportunity. The NCIL articles
in this edition of Independence Today highlight just a few of the ways
our community is beginning to seize control of the dialogue and the course of
our future.
Now, more than ever, is the time to get involved in the
national independent living movement. NCIL’s strength lies in the power of
the voice of each member. The coming year will be difficult, filled with
failures and small successes eclipsed by the magnitude of our mission. But we
will persevere, remaining united in our goal to make independent living a right
for every American. We will be stalwart in pursuit of freedom for our brothers
and sisters still unjustly detained in nursing homes and other institutions. We
will not rest until people with disabilities achieve true political, social and
economic equality. And together we shall achieve it.
It’s time to get our hands dirty. Join us at:
www.ncil.org.
Sincerel,
Kelly Buckland, NCIL executive director
President Obama Meets Privately with Disability
Representatives, Promises to Continue the Dialogue
On July 24th, President Obama invited NCIL Executive
Director Kelly Buckland, along with 11 other representatives of the disability
community, to meet privately with him, Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary
of Labor Hilda Solis and nine other senior White House officials in advance of
the 19th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
President’s announcement of his intent to sign and seek Senate
ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Attending the meeting for the disability community were
representatives from the U.S. International Council on Disabilities, Access
Living of Metropolitan Chicago, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the
Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, Arc and the UCP Disability Policy
Collaboration, AAPD, the Global Partnership for Disability and Development, and
several other businesses, organizations and individuals.
The disability community representatives engaged in a
productive dialogue with Holder and Solis before the President arrived,
discussing our priorities for civil rights enforcement at both departments,
including but not limited to Internet accessibility, Olmstead enforcement,
reducing the waiting period for ADA complaints to be resolved, using OFCCP to
enforce the affirmative action provisions in the Rehabilitation Act, protecting
children from the use of aversives and restraints, and implementing a
governmentwide strategy to improve the representation of people with
significant disabilities in the federal workforce.
When the President arrived, he noted that the team had a
wide-ranging agenda that included employment, education, technology, health
care and civil rights policy, and he indicated his interest in using this first
meeting as a listening session. The team emphasized the importance of seeing
disability policy issues as fundamentally about fairness, civil rights and
human rights. They shared personal discrimination stories and expressed a
desire to work with the White House and agencies across the administration on a
broad-based strategy to make progress between now and 20th anniversary of the
ADA. A significant portion of time was devoted to health care reform and the
need to end the institutional bias in Medicaid.
The disability community representatives came away
believing that the President, his cabinet representatives and his senior White
House staff are committed to working with the disability community to achieve
the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act. NCIL looks forward to
following up on all of the issues discussed at the historic meeting, which
represented a very important step forward for our community and for the
country.
(Two weeks after that meeting, Attorney General Holder met
again with the team, this time to discuss his leadership role, enforcement
priorities and access to justice issues.)
Opportunities for the Independent Living Agenda in Health
Care Reform
Following the health care debate in Congress the past six
months has been a challenge, to say the least. With the last of five different
bills finally passed out of committee, there is so much information and
conjecture to process that many Americans feel completely lost on how to feel
about the not-yet-written final legislation. NCIL supports universal health
care, based on the belief that health care is a right, and we are looking
forward to seeing the progress Congress can make on this front. But the massive
bills that will eventually be merged into a single piece of legislation have
provided us with the opportunity to advance some of our most basic and
long-standing goals: ending the institutional bias and passage of the CLASS
Act.
NCIL continues to vigorously support the Community Choice
Act (CCA) as a stand-alone bill. It has been our unwavering goal to have the
language of the CCA in the final reform bill; our policy is to pursue a
compromise only if it becomes very clear that the CCA would not be a part of
the reform legislation. Over the course of the last few months, that fact has
been made very clear to disability advocates in Washington and throughout the
nation.
NCIL is pursuing a compromise known as the Community First
Choice option (CFC option). The CFC option would encourage states to provide
Medicaid home- and community-based attendant services, rather than require
them, as the Community Choice Act would. The cost of the CFC option is
estimated to be $1 billion over five years. It includes a “sunset
provision,” which means that, after five years, Congress would need to
approve keeping the CFC option in place.
The core elements of the Community Choice Act (found in
Section 101 of the bill) would be structured as an option for states to include
in their Medicaid state plans. The CFC option would provide individuals with
disabilities who are eligible for nursing homes and other institutional
settings with options to receive community-based services. CFC would support
the Olmstead decision by giving people the choice to leave facilities and
institutions for their own homes and communities with appropriate,
cost-effective services and supports. It would also help address state waiting
lists for services by providing access to a community-based benefit within
Medicaid. The option would not allow caps on the number of individuals served,
nor allow waiting lists for those services. Another important feature is that
the Money Follows the Person program would be modified to move the basic
eligibility requirement of six months of institutionalization to 90 days.
The CFC option is included in the bill passed out of the
Senate Finance Committee; the CLASS Act, another important priority for our
community, was included in the bill approved by the Senate Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The CLASS Act would assist people with
disabilities who are employed and in need of long-term assistance or supports
by providing a flexible cash insurance benefit that could be used creatively to
purchase services, supports and technology.
(By press time, the issue of whether the CLASS Act or the
CFC option would remain in health care reform legislation was not settled.)
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