(Washington D.C.) “No More Excuses!” is the message hundreds of activists from across the nation are bringing to the Capitol today. ADAPT is in Washington to remind the Congress, the Administration and US States that Americans prefer the community and expect action not excuses to end the institutional bias, gain equality in housing and continue to have choice in health care.
The continuing focus of ADAPT is to destroy the barriers that force families apart and people with disabilities into nursing homes and other institutions. Likewise, ADAPT is working to keep older Americans and persons with disabilities in their own homes in the community with the services and supports they need. The lack of affordable, accessible, integrated housing, the lack of personal assistance programs in all states, and the movement to integrate long-term care services and supports into state acute health care managed care plans are the specific obstacles that ADAPT will overcome.
The President's Deficit Reduction Act provision of Money Follows the Person (MFP) reflects progress in the availability of Medicaid-funded personal assistance. MFP allows people to move from nursing homes and other institutions and have the funding that pays for their services and supports move with them to their new home in the community. The federal government is strongly encouraging state participation in MFP by making additional funding available to states that assist people to move from nursing homes and other institutional settings back into their communities; however, states are not required to participate in the federal program.
"The next step is for Congress to pass MiCASSA (S.401 - H.R. 910) so people are not forced into nursing homes and other institutions in the first place," said Tennessee ADAPT Organizer Randy Alexander.
A federal Medicaid requirement for states to provide institutional service has become an excuse for states to continue to funnel money into expensive and undesirable institutions. Ending the “Medicaid bias” to institutions has been a aspiration of ADAPT for over ten-years. But ADAPT is not the kind of group to only point out what is wrong – ADAPT supports proactive legislation to correct the bias, has developed policy from the experience of people with disabilities and creates methods that will work.
The Medicaid bias was began over thirty years ago in the forming the Medicaid program. At that time, Americans with disabilities were expected to receive long-term services and supports in institutions, and Medicaid statute made institutional care mandatory for a state to qualify for the federal Medicaid funds. Since the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, citizens expect inclusion in the community. The for-profit nursing home industry, that has developed from the exclusive federal guarantee of Medicaid funds; however, sees the desirable and cost effective home and community-based services as a threat to their profits.
"As we move out of nursing homes and other institutions, we need affordable, accessible, integrated housing to move into," said Cassie James, Philadelphia ADAPT Organizer. "An obvious place to start is with the nation's Public Housing Authorities (PHAs). The PHAs have the ability to designate Section 8 housing vouchers specifically for use by people leaving nursing homes and institutions who are receiving home and community based services. We need to make sure the PHAs do just that- No More Excuses!"
Three summers back, in 2003, ADAPT activists lead the successful Free Our People March, a 144-mile civil rights march from Philadelphia to Washington DC to highlight the need for choices in long-term care. More Americans are demanding an end to the Medicaid bias that favors facilities. People with disabilities are leading the march to change the Medicaid bias and give Americans choices.
ADAPT is likely the most diverse group ever known. Most people notice the large number of wheelchair users in ADAPT, but ADAPT represents a broad spectrum of disabilities, as well as, diversity in race, creed, gender income and family status. ADAPT is a varied yet highly organized family.
