[Onthebarricades] Fw: [victimisationagainstdisabledpeople] 99 Arrested as ADAPT Demands U.S. House Hearings on Community Choice Act

[Andy]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colin REvell" <colrev at hotmail.co.uk>
To: <victimisationagainstdisabledpeople at yahoogroups.com>; 
<theglobalvoice4inclusion at yahoogroups.com>; <solidoak at solidoak.karoo.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 7:38 PM
Subject: [victimisationagainstdisabledpeople] 99 Arrested as ADAPT Demands 
U.S. House Hearings on Community Choice Act


>
> ADAPT Press Release on the Arrests
>
> For Immediate Release:
>
> April 29, 2007
>
> For information contact:
> Bob Kafka (512) 431-4085
> Marsha Katz (406) 544-9504
>
> 99 Arrested as ADAPT Demands U.S. House Hearings on Community
> Choice Act
>
> Washington, D.C. - 99 arrests occurred when ADAPT invaded the
> Rayburn House Office Building to push for hearings on the
> Community Choice Act (CCA, S 799 and H.R. 1621) by the House
> Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Health. ADAPT took
> over the hearing room along with the office of Rep. John Dingell
> (D-MI), and Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), and filled the horseshoe drive
> outside the Rayburn front door.
>
> "We've been waiting for ten years for this legislation to pass,
> and all the while Congress has refused to act on this national
> scandal of America forcing people into nursing homes against their
> will," said Dawn Russell, currently with ADAPT in Colorado. "I had
> to leave my home state of Tennessee in order to get the assistance
> that would keep me out of a nursing home. I want so much to be
> able to go home to Tennessee to be with my family, but I can't
> because then I'd be forced into a nursing home just because I need
> personal assistance to get through my day, and Tennessee refuses
> to provide that assistance to people in their own homes. I won't
> give up my freedom, my privacy, my dignity and the control over my
> life, so I have to stay in exile in Colorado."
>
> The CCA was introduced in March 2007, and is the newest version of
> legislation that would remove the institutional bias in the
> nation's outdated Medicaid program by allowing Medicaid to pay for
> the services and supports people need to remain in their own
> homes. Under Medicaid currently, states are federally mandated to
> provide only nursing home services, and are not equally mandated
> to provide similar services in a person's own home, thus diverting
> the person from being forced into a nursing home or other
> institution. In order for the CCA to move through Congress, the
> next step is to hold hearings. ADAPT met with the Democratic
> National Committee (DNC) last week, and is meeting with the
> Republican National Committee (RNC) this week to garner their
> support for hearings, and to gain additional co-sponsors.
>
> "It's easy for Congress to ignore us," said Guadalupe Vasquez of
> Texas ADAPT. After all, they all make a very good living and have
> great benefits, and so they will never have to face the prospect
> of being institutionalized and losing their freedom. But so many
> of us live on $600/month, so we are the people who Congress, by
> its inaction, is guaranteeing will lose the freedom so prized in
> America. We'll lose our freedom, and we'll be relegated to back
> wards where we lie in our own waste until someone eventually takes
> the time to change us, and where we acquire deadly pressure sores
> because no one takes the time to reposition us. It's way past time
> for Congress to correct this travesty."
>
> The ability to stay in one's own home with needed services is even
> more critical now that the baby boom generation has entered its
> "disability years," the time of life when they are most likely to
> acquire disabilities that will cause them to leave the workforce
> and apply for disability benefits. Some of the members of ADAPT
> have been part of the organization since its inception nearly 25
> years ago, going from being younger people with disabilities
> forced into nursing homes to elders of retirement age, again being
> threatened with forced institutionalization.
>
> Observed Barbara Toomer of Utah ADAPT, "More and more of us have
> come to see the need for home and community-based services from
> two perspectives- disability and aging. The perspectives may
> differ a bit, but the desire to remain in our own homes with the
> services and supports we need is exactly the same. We must assure
> passage of the Community Choice Act now."
>
> On Tuesday, May 1, ADAPT will host HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson
> for a meeting at their hotel in the morning, and then will meet
> with Mike Hudson, Chair of the Republican National Committee in
> the afternoon.
>
> Source: ADAPT
> __________________________________________________________
>
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