President Biden announced the American Families Plan on Wednesday, April 28th, a $1.8 trillion package with investments in education, childcare, nutrition assistance, and changes to tax credits. framed as an investment in our kids, our families, and our economic future.
The American Families Plan is a companion to the American Jobs Plan, a proposal for infrastructure reform and economic recovery. Republican Senate Leaders have released their Road Map, a $568 billion framework focused on items considered transitional infrastructure, such as repairs for bridges and updating waterways. All proposals are frameworks that will need to be translated into legislative text and passed through both houses of Congress. Priorities in the disability community that are being considered as part of the president's legislative package include:
Ending subminimum wages and modernizing disability employment supports to allow for competitive, integrated employment;
Continued expansion of access to Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) for people with disabilities, ending waiting lists for services, and ensuring a stable, valued direct support workforce;
Meeting the needs of children, including children with disabilities, in childcare and education birth-college; and
Ensuring all modernization of physical and virtual infrastructures are accessible.
Plain language:
Congress is working on a big bill that could help people with disabilities. You may be hearing about it as a plan for improving our country's infrastructure.
Infrastructure means the buildings, roads, bridges, power lines, and other things our country needs to work every day. It can also include systems that make our country work like schools, healthcare, and other government services.
What it means to you:
Disability issues are a large part of the American Jobs Plan, creating a need for all members of Congress to hear from you about Home and Community Based Services and Competitive Integrated Employment. It is very important that all members of Congress are hearing from their constituents about how these investments will impact people and systems in your community.
Email or call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 (voice) or (202) 224-3091(tty) and ask to be connected to your Senators and Representatives.
You can use Congress.gov to find your Members of Congress.
Leave a brief message sharing that Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) and Competitive Integrated Employment are important to you. Ask to be updated on how the Member will support these issues.
Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS)
AUCD submitted comments on the discussion draft of the HCBS Access Act. The draft bill would mandate HCBS in Medicaid to provide services, create national minimum requirements for HCBS, and make it possible to improve upon those services and the direct support professionals workforce. While the HCBS Access Act will be a long-term education and advocacy effort, it is fair to raise many of the points and needs discussed in this act in support of the $400 Billion investment in HCBS within infrastructure negotiations described above.
Plain language:
Lawmakers are working on several ways to improve Home and Community Based Services across the country. It is important for your Representative and both of your Senators to hear from you about what you need and any ideas you have.
What this means to you:
Home and Community Based Services help people with disabilities live in their own homes and receive services in the community. It is important that all people with disabilities have access to good HCBS no matter where they live.
Action steps:
Email or call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 (voice) or (202) 224-3091(tty) and ask to be connected to your Senators and Representatives.
You can use Congress.gov to find your Members of Congress.
Leave a brief message sharing that Home and Community-Based Services and Competitive Integrated Employment are important to you. Ask to be updated on how the Member plans to address these needs.
Accessible Voting Act
Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the Accessible Voting Act (S. 1470) on April 29. This would amend the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 to increase voting accessibility for individuals with disabilities and older individuals. It would establish the Office of Accessibility, ensure access to accurate information and voter resources, expand the number of options to cast a ballot, establish a national resource center on accessible voting, and increase grants to states to improve accessibility.
Plain language:
This bill would help people with disabilities vote.
What this means to you:
Despite federal laws requiring fully accessible voting places, barriers to vote for people with disabilities and older adults are still there and impact their ability to vote.
Action steps:
Contact your Senators to sign on as co-sponsors: United States Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
This legislation is currently cosponsored by U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).
It is fair to raise this bill and the importance of access to voting as part of discussions around the For the People Act (S.1).
Guidance for fully-vaccinated persons
Because of increased vaccination rates, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidance this week that lifts certain restrictions for fully vaccinated persons. Related to this change, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) revised its memo on visitation and testing guidance for congregant care settings.
Plain language:
As more people are fully vaccinated the rules for mask wearing and social distancing are changing.
What it means to you:
Learning about new guidance will be important as we navigate all parts of life.
Access to COVID-19 Vaccines for People with Disabilities
Vaccines are now widely available for people 16 years old and older. Efforts are now focused on ensuring access for people with disabilities and those that support them, and providing information to increase vaccine confidence.
Plain language:
Work is happening to make sure people with disabilities can get COVID-19 vaccines.
What it means to you:
State and local groups have official guidance they can use to make sure people have access to vaccines.
Action steps:
Share new resources and tools to support vaccination efforts:
The House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) re-introduced the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R.3). The bill would:
Empower the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate prescription drug prices in Medicare and make those negotiated prices available to commercial health insurance plans.
Cap Medicare beneficiaries' out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs at $2,000 per year.
The National Council on Disability sent a letter to the House expressing concerns about H.R. 3. The letter reflected concerns from the disability community:
"Drug prices need to be lowered. They should not be permitted to be lowered based on the use of a pricing methodology that has unarguably been proven to be discriminatory in its use against persons with disabilities. Acceptance of foreign drug prices set in reliance on the QALY method effectively endorses the use of this discriminatory pricing methodology."
Plain language:
Congress is working on a bill to lower the cost of medications. They need to hear from you about why people with disabilities are opposed to referencing Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) used in other countries.
What it means to you:
The Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act may have provisions that you support and that benefit people with disabilities. As it is currently written there is reason to be concerned that it could increase discrimination.
Read the open letter to Congress and the Administration from the disability community on the importance of ensuring that discriminatory Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and similar metrics based on averages are not a part of any health care legislation.
Email or call the Capitol Switchboard at: (202) 224-3121 (voice) or (202) 224-3091 (tty) and connect to your Members of Congress.
You can use this easy tool to find your Members of Congress.
Executive Order to Raise the Minimum Wage to $15 for Federal Contractors
The Biden-Harris administration issued an executive order on April 27 that will raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 by March 2022. The order will result in a 37-percent raise for federal contractors making the current contracting minimum $10.95. The order ensures a $15 wage for federal contract workers with disabilities, ending use of subminimum wages in the federal contract system.
Plain language:
President Biden has ordered that federal contractors will have to be paid at least $15.00 per hour. This order means that federal contractors can no longer be paid subminimum wages.
What it means to you:
The raise will directly benefit federal contractors and provide additional pressure to raise minimum wages and end subminimum wage.
Action steps:
Educate your Members of Congress on the need to end subminimum wages and transition to competitive integrated employment for all workers.
Members of the House of Representatives can be asked to support the bipartisan Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act (H.R.2373).
Opportunity for Input: Public Health and Medical Preparedness and Response Programs
On April 29th, the Senate Committee of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) announced their intention to consider legislation to better prepare the nation for future public health emergencies. Committee leadership is looking to hear from stakeholders regarding improving the nation's public health infrastructure and its ability to be prepared for the next public health threat. Topics for which input is needed:
Strategies for strengthening and modernizing federal public health and medical preparedness and response systems and programs, including infrastructure, to better support states, localities, and Tribes.
Ensuring sufficient public health and medical capacity to continue providing critical services to at-risk populations. This includes applying lessons learned from COVID-19 to address health disparities in future public health preparedness and response efforts.
Strengthening readiness within the medical countermeasure enterprise to ensure that countermeasures can be rapidly identified and advanced through clinical development and manufacturing and appropriately deployed and distributed when a new public health threat is identified.
Modernizing the development of medical countermeasures to address public health threats.
Improving and securing the supply chain for the U.S.'s critical medical supplies needed to swiftly address public health threats.
Plain language:
Lawmakers are working improving Public Health and Medical Preparedness and Response Programs. They want to hear from you about what you need and any ideas you have.
What this means to you:
The past year's COVID emergency has demonstrated how little public health systems had planned for and engaged with the needs of people with disabilities. Members of Congress are looking to address these deficiencies for future crises. Your input is needed.
Action steps:
Learn more about the input being requested with this memo.
Comments should be directed to both Senator Murray and Senator Burr.
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A network of interdisciplinary centers advancing policy and practice for and with individuals with developmental and other disabilities, their families, and communities.
The American Families Plan
Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS)
Guidance for fully-vaccinated persons
