WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP CASA?
ADAPT continues the follow up from Atlanta. Working with Gingrich's
staff, ADAPT and the Speaker are aiming to get the Community Attendant
Services Act, CASA, bill introduced in May. Negotiations are also
moving along for the meeting with President Clinton to discuss CASA and
Medicaid's institutional bias.
In the meantime, there are several things you can do to help push the
issue. Here are some examples.
1) Visit\write your Congressperson and Senator to tell them about CASA
and why you support it:
- Assume they know nothing about the issue.
- Be concrete and make it personal: "without my attendant I would be
stuck in bed\in my
wheelchair all day and could not go to the bathroom or eat my lunch!"
"My attendant helps me take a bath, get dressed and helps me clean my
apartment." And...
- "I used to live in a nursing home and the thing I am most glad I could
leave behind me when I left that hell hole, besides the everpresent
smell of pee, is waiting for hours with my call light on and no one
coming."
- If you know statistics you can use a few of them: "Here in Texas all
but one of the community care programs are frozen, and there are over
20,000 people on the waiting lists." Too many stats puts anyone in a
daze.
- If you don't know that kind of info don't worry! Your personal story
alone is very helpful. A lot of people think if you are as messed up as
we are, you gotta be in a nursing home or have a 24 hour nurse/keeper.
Enlighten them.
- If your Congressperson or Senator seems really interested, ask about
their being a co-sponsor.
2) Write or visit your Governor with the same message. Although we are
talking federal legislation here, the Governors are very important
because they wll play a major role in deciding about Medicaid and
Medicare reform. ADAPT found this out when we did an action at the NGA
meeting, February 2nd.
3) Raise funds! Help get as many people to DC as possible, if we are really going
to hold the feet of Congress and the Administration to the fire, we need as many people as we can get!
4) Get groups you are involved with to send to ADAPT letters of support
(or other written endorsement) for CASA. Try DD Councils, SILC's, CIL's, ARC's etc.
The Washington action will be an important opportunity to send Bill and Newt and the rest of
their gang an ADAPT message.
Thanks for your help and FREE OUR PEOPLE.