National Council on Disability Recommends Changes in the Long Term Care System

Over 300 people with disabilities, family members and advocates gathered in Dallas, TX on April 27-29 to discuss future disability policy direction and to make substantive recommendations as a road map to the 21st Century. The gathering was organized by the National Council on Disability in order to get national input for their report "Achieving Independence : The Challenge for the 21st Century." A similar report "Toward Independence," published in 1986 served as the blueprint and impetus for the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA.

The Dallas summit focused on 11 policy areas: civil rights, education, employment, health care, housing, income maintenance, technology, transportation and long-term services.

The recommendations of the long term services policy group called for the establishment of a national long-term services and supports policy that unifies the existing fragmented funding streams. The group agreed new policy should reverse the current institutional bias and be grounded in values of consumer choice, consumer direction and community participation. Long term services funding should give priority to home and community services. The federal and state roles need to be clearly defined.

Recognizing that this won't happen over night, the NCD long term services group also recommended mandating that each state have a transition team to develop a transition plan to move from the institutional/medical model to a home and community based, consumer directed model.

For a copy of the report call NCD at 202/272-2004 v or 202/272-2774 tdd.