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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 nation’s 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 nation’s 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 Administration’s 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;
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Thompson’s and McClennan’s 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.
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HHS development of rules, regulations and procedures that will be an incentive for states to implement a money follow the person process.
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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.
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HHS to develop rules, regulations and procedures that will make consumer direction part of all home and community service programs including Home Health.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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HHS to direct AND SUPPORT HHS OCR to actively pursue and resolve state and individual violations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision.
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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.
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