ADAPT to meet with Gov. Purdue's staff on Olmstead
Governor Sonny Purdue agreed to meet with ADAPT today after 400 soaking wet activists took over the state Capitol building and demanded Georgia work to finally comply with the US Supreme Court 1999 Olmstead decision. Ten years ago the state of Georgia lost their case asking to institutionalize people receiving state long-term care services rather than serve them in the community. Olmstead reinforced the right of people with disabilities to live in the community.
ADAPT is in Atlanta to end the institutional bias in Medicaid that forces Americans out of their homes and into institutions to get long-term care services. Many states like Georgia spend most of their federal Medicaid long-term services dollars on expensive and undesirable institutions.
"It's a shame that 10 years after Olmstead, more people are going into nursing homes than before,” said Bernard Baker, an organizer with ADAPT's Atlanta chapter. "Living in the community isn't a privilege, it's a civil right, and we are being denied our civil rights.”
ADAPT developed national legislation with former Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich to end the dominance of institutional funding in long-term services. Gingrich introduced the first version of the Community Choice Act in 2007. ADAPT is working to include the Community First Option in the current Health care reform to reverse the preference of institutions over home and family.
In a solid downpour, ADAPT marched from the Omni Hotel to the Georgia State Capitol Building. Following a brief scuffle at the door, over a hundred activists filed into the building demanding to meet with Governor Sonny Purdue. State Troopers stopped another 200 activists in the rain outside the Capitol.
“Sonny Purdue should make good on his campaign promise,” said Joe Stramondo, “because people with disabilities are marginalized by the system and we will push back.”
The State Troopers threatened arrests, but it was clear that ADAPT had control of the building and began negotiations with the governor’s staff. ADAPT passed along a list of eight demands for Gov. Purdue:
The first ADAPT demand was to meet with ADAPT.
Second is for the governor to appoint an Olmstead Czar for the state of Georgia. Rather than having no one actually responsible to divert and move people out of institutions the Czar would have that direct responsibility and work to get people out of institutions or coordinate the state services so to comply with Olmstead.
Third is to adequately fund community based services. The state Medicaid program is significantly underwriting institutions means that Georgia funds go mostly to the most expensive and least desirable care. It is a method of controlling costs by offering a bad product. No one wants to live in a nursing home, so people work and mortgage their life savings to stay out. However, our bias Medicaid policy requires nursing homes while cost effective home and community programs are optional. States like Georgia are driven to expand their expensive institutional programs and have no funds to expand the nursing home options.
The fourth ADAPT demand is a freeze on institutional spending. This makes good sense: If you invest in community services the state can first stop wasting funding on the expensive institutional services and help build a sustainable long-term care system for Georgia.
ADAPT’s fifth demand is to modernize the state Nurse Practices Act. Most other states have updated the nurse practices to cut costs and help people get the routine services they need to remain in the community.
Sixth, ADAPT demands that Georgia fund community-based transitional counseling. After years of institutionalization, typical decisions an individual may make are no longer simple for someone. The counseling can have many goals, one being to maintain independence and avoid expensive intervention.
Seventh is a demand that the governor issue and executive order to require the Division of Aging to carry out their commitment to implementing the Money Follows the Person Demonstration program and remove the “cost share” from Community Care Services Program services. This represents using the federal money that Georgia has to help make a real difference in the lives of institutionalized people.
Finally, ADAPT demanded the state of Georgia show some leadership in the area of Olmstead compliance and use the fact that the case came out of Georgia to help transition people and to publicly ask other southern states to also demand Olmstead implementation.
To begin the day, ADAPT had planned to leave the hotel at 6:30 am; but the rain and wind was strong and cold. ADAPT immediately began working on an alternative plan because it was clear that struggling against that weather would have taken a lot of the groups energy needed for direct action.
Inside the large meeting room of the Omni Hotel, ADAPT began to gather and put on rain gear to prepare for the bad weather outside; however, at 8:30 not a lot was different than it was at 6:30. The large conference room was a sea of orange ponchos and brightly colored weather gear, hats and coats.
At 9:00 am ADAPT moved out in the overcast morning. One-by-one activists dashed out of the posh lobby into the miserable wind and cold. The wind whipped their thin plastic rain ponchos around and a gritty determination was reflected on the faces of the activists heading out against the gale.
Two ADAPT activists practicing non-violent direct action techniques, were roughly treated by the surprised Holiday security staff and cited by the Police.
“The police pushed Rudy down and walked over her then dragged her away,” said Nicky Boyte an ADAPT activist who witnessed the encounter. “Our people helped her to get up, we were never violent, but they arrested her and then would not let her use her cane. She was manhandled and took some bruises but she held her own with the state troopers. She was just holding the door and was not violent; the state troopers were the violent ones.”
“I believe that people have a right to live in their own homes,” said Rudy Fox. “I guess that doesn’t matter if you live in Georgia.”
David Witte responded to an officer who asked him to move out of a door he was blocking: “I’d rather go to jail than to die in a nursing home.” The officer moved his ear closer to him and David politely said again: “I’d rather go to jail than to die in a nursing home.”
The officer moved his ear closer as if he was unable to hear so David raised his volume. And again the officer got closer and David got louder. Finally, David said the officer had his ear right at where it would touch David’s mouth and David as loud as he could said: “I’d rather go to jail than to die in a nursing home.”
ADAPT marched together back to the hotel in the diminishing rain. The victory of direct action had given the saturated group some extra energy. ADAPT met together at the hotel after an hour to plan more action for Tuesday, plus a meeting with the governor.
“If Sonny Purdue were here now,” said Anita Cameron of Rochester ADAPT, “I would tell him that he needs to be a real leader and work with the state to create a state plan and to keep his promises.”