Senator Casey (D-PA) introduced the HCBS Infrastructure Improvement Act (S. 3277) to provide federal funding through multi-year grants to help states' HCBS service delivery systems. States would have the flexibility to use funding to achieve three or more of the following goals: Expand the supply and availability of affordable, accessible housing; Provide accessible, affordable, reliable, equitable transportation options; Increase wages and benefits and support and sustain direct care professionals; Expand competitive, integrated employment for people with disabilities; and Build comprehensive, no-wrong-door application, referral and counseling systems.
Plain Language:
This bill would give money to states to create better home and community-based services and systems for people with disabilities.
What this means to you:
Through waivers and state plan options, Medicaid offers states ways to provide HCBS. Yet, the needs are more than the available services. In 2017, more than 700,000 individuals were on wait lists to receive HCBS. States need resources to improve their service delivery networks to meet the needs of people with disabilities and older adults.
Action Steps:
Contact your Senators to sign on as co-sponsors: United States Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
Abuse and Neglect
Senators Murray (D-WA) and Murphy (D-CT) along with other Democratic senators wrote a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner to immediately end the use of electrical stimulation devices (ESDs) on children and adults with disabilities. The rule was first proposed on April 25, 2016. In the fall of 2018, and again in 2019, the FDA announced they intended to finalize the rule by December 2019. They are urging the FDA to finalize a proposed rule immediately.
Plain Language:
Senators are asking the government to end abusing people with disabilities.
What this means to you:
ESDs-which attach to the skin and allow another person to use electric shocks-are still allowed to be used as a form of punishment and behavioral control.
Senator Udall (D-NM) and U.S. Representative Lowenthal (D-CA), along with Senator Merkley (D-OR) introduced the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020 (HR 5845, S 3263). It would phase out unnecessary single-use plastic products, hold companies accountable for wasteful products, reduce wasteful packaging, and reform our broken waste and recycling collection system.
Plain Language:
This bill would get rid of using some plastic products to help the environment.
What this means to you:
Our global environmental challenges affect people with disabilities. At the same time, the changes in production and practice could impact access to items that have made communities more accessible. The bill authors worked with the disability community to ensure the rights of people with disabilities are protected as we shift environmental practices.
Action Steps:
Contact your Members of Congress to sign on as co-sponsors: United States Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
Medicaid Work Requirements
Last week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in Gresham v. Azar, about the Trump administration's approval of a restrictive Medicaid waiver project work requirements. Judge David Sentelle issued the unanimous opinion. The panel found that in approving the project without considering its effect on Medicaid coverage, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services violated the Administrative Procedure Act.
Plain Language:
A decision has been made that Medicaid work requirements can not happen.
What this means to you:
It means that thousands of low-income people will maintain their health insurance coverage - coverage that enables them to live, work, and participate as fully as they can in their communities.
Check out AUCD's new policy resource, a one-page fact sheet to help explain AUCD's policy efforts, and engage with us today!
AUCD Disability Policy Fellowship
Applications are open for the full year (June 2020-May 2021) AUCD Disability Policy Fellowship. Persons with disabilities or family members, and persons from culturally diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
Tuesdays With Liz
Disability Access is a Right with Haben Girma
"We have a lot of work to do to make our world more inclusive." --Haben Girma, 2019 AUCD Conference featured speaker
Haben knows that being deafblind does NOT make her inferior; the world needs to work harder to accommodate her, as is law under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She advocates and tells her story so that everyone has a stronger understanding of what it's like to navigate college and a career as a deafblind individual in her book "Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law."
A network of interdisciplinary centers advancing policy and practice for and with individuals with developmental and other disabilities, their families, and communities.
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