September 16, 2003
For more information, contact:
Bob Kafka (512) 431-4085 cell
Marsha Katz (406) 544-9504 cell

A D A P T  Rally for MiCASSA in Upper Senate Park

(Washington, D.C.) The final day of a 2-week disability rights march, the first-ever Free Our People March, rolls into the nation's capital this Wednesday, Sept. 17, and will conclude with a 1 pm rally at Upper Senate Park.

The march, coordinated by the national disability rights group ADAPT, began two weeks ago in Philadelphia to draw attention to a Medicaid policy which mandates that states provide long-term care services in nursing homes to people with disabilities old and young, but does not mandate in-home services. In-home care is the more-preferred alternative, and is known to be more cost-effective.

More than 200 from nearly 25 states, most of whom use wheelchairs have traveled the 144 miles, camping along they way, to demand that the 108th Congress pass legislation known as MiCASSA, the Medicaid Community-based Attendant Services and Supports Act (S 971 and HR 2032). The act would amend Medicaid so people could choose where they wanted to receive their long-term care services. Activists plan to lobby Congress on Thursday.

This is the first time people in wheelchairs have staged such a grueling and difficult march -- one reminiscent of the shorter marches undertaken by civil rights activists in the 1960s for the Voting Rights Act.

Rally speakers will describe the fight of many to stay out of nursing homes and explain why they want a change in the federal law that will currently pay for them to be in nursing homes, but not pay for much cheaper services that would keep them in their own homes. "We are marching for our lives, our freedom," activist Daniese McMullin-Powell told the crowd in Wilmington as it paused in its march through Delaware.

WHAT: Free Our People Rally

WHEN: 1 - 3 p.m. Wed., Sept. 17

WHERE: Upper Senate Park, Constitution Ave between Delaware and New Jersey

WHO: Speakers include:

• Senate Sponsors Tom Harkin (D-IA) & Arlen Specter (R-PA);

• Reps. Danny Davis (D-IL) & John Shimkus (R-IL);

• Andrew L. Stern, President, Service Employees International Union;

• And over 10,000 supporters of ADAPT and our coalition, including National Council on Aging, National Council on Independent Living, ADA Watch, American Association of People with Disabilities, and SEIU, among others.

For more information contact National ADAPT, 1339 Lamar Square Drive number 101, Austin, TX 78704 or visit http://www.FreeOurPeople.org 

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