FREE OUR PEOPLE!

ADAPT is a national organization committed to advancing civil rights, self image and life opportunities for persons with disabilities by direct action and peaceful, non-violent civil disobedience.

ADAPT in the news

• Learn about MiCASSA
  The bill which will fundamentally change America's system of long-term care by reversing bias toward institutional placement for people who need assistance in their daily lives!

• The text of MiCASSA

• The Supreme Court rules nursing home care "unnecessary segregation"

• Memphis ADAPT beats back an injunction

• November 2-7 ADAPT stormed into Atlanta to press Newt Gingrich and the Democratic Party to consider legislation giving Americans a choice of long-term care.
  

  

• The Squeaky Wheel
  The newsletter of Tennessee ADAPT

• The United States Constitution
  ...in HTML format.

• Your link to the National ADAPT website

Return to the top of the page

• CHOICE in long-term care.
• MiCASSA, to provide "market" incentives and small business opportunities.
• Real homes not nursing homes.
• The End of institutional bias. (Every state that gets Medicaid funding is required to have nursing homes. There is no requirement for home and community-based services).

In 1994, the Veterans Administration's nursing homes housed, on average, 13,502 people on any given day. The taxpayer expenditures on VA nursing homes was a total of $1.02 billion in that year. The average cost per person served was $75,641.

In 1994, Veterans Administration Homemaker/Home Health Aide Services, a pilot program, provided attendant services to approximately 1, 500 people at an average cost of $6,645 per person. (VA Public Affairs, 1996 Congressional Submission, p.2-39)

Return to the top of the page

2.3 million Americans with disabilities have no choice but to live in nursing homes. Taxpayers provide 63% of nursing home funding. Very few tax dollars are allocated for home- and community-based services.

Some states make Medicaid waiver funds available so that a small number of people with disabilities may live in their own homes, not nursing homes. The waiver funds pay for attendant services, assistance with a range of activities of daily living such as transferring from bed to wheelchair, shopping for and preparing meals, grooming, and toileting.

Although most nursing home residents are over the age of 70, some are as young as two years of age. Every nursing home resident has one or more disabilities. Not all require the services of nurses on a daily or even weekly basis.

Many people live in nursing homes only because they have no other choice. Medicaid does not, for the most part, fund home health services.

Return to the top of the page

ADAPT of Tennessee
Position Statement
HB 2842 & SB 2411

The Comptroller's Report last October has opened many people's eyes to the need to address long-term care in Tennessee. Facts brought out about long-term care in Tennessee are followed by the position of the grass-roots advocacy organization ADAPT of Tennessee.

Funding for long-term care services should follow the consumer regardless of delivery method utilized, and without regard to whether such services are categorized as medical care. [TEXT OF HB 2842 & SB 2411]

This principal should be the guiding focus of Tennessee Long- term care. Funding should "follow" the person out of an institution and into the community. Long-term care should be directed by the individual as closely as possible.

People are leaving Tennessee to live and work in other states that offer comprehensive long- term care. People with disabilities are discouraged from bringing their talents to our state because we do not offer reasonable non- institutional care.

Tennessee must address the daily needs, personal care assistance, and non- institutional resources of elderly and disabled citizens who want to live and work in our state.

Tennessee long-term care legislation puts emphasis on case management.

Tennessee must end the "caretaker-dependency model" and provide consumer choices.

Tennesseans want community-based care

Tennessee long-term care must be consistent with the civil rights initiative of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA requires that government services be provided in the "most integrated setting." The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that providing services only in a nursing home is "illegal discrimination." [Helen L. v. DiDario]

Successful models in other states are offering consumer-directed efficient and effective long- term care.

Revisit the proposed legislation and include the initiatives of the national legislation MiCASA, HR 2020.

People are not institutionalized because they are elderly, People go to nursing homes because they have one or more disabilities.

People with disabilities must be included in formulating the comprehensive plan for Tennessee. The Long-Term Care Services Planning Council must include more consumer involvement.

99% of Tennessee's long-term care funding is spent on subsidized facilities

Consumer choices means more market competition to provide efficient and effective delivery of services.

Tennesseans currently in institutions deserve community options.

Legislation for long-term care cannot ignore people currently in institutions

Return to the top of the page

Note: Following is Tennessee ADAPT's 1998 nomination for Tennessee to be considered the worst state for providing long-term care.

Ten Worst States
Tennessee
Nomination for providing long-term care

• 45,000 people live in nursing homes in Tennessee [W. R. Snodgrass, Comptroller of the Treasury; Long-Term Care of Tennessee's Elderly, Oct. 1997]

• 1783 people live in ICF/MRs (1115 state; 668 private) [Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation]

• 851 (Avg. Daily Census) people live in state mental hospitals in Tennessee [Mental Health Services]

• 99% of federal dollars are spent on institutional services in Tennessee according to The Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury. [W. R. Snodgrass, Comptroller of the Treasury; Long-Term Care of Tennessee's Elderly, Oct. 1997]

• There is no state funded program that is available to all Tennesseans. The small state programs that exist are very restrictive.

• The cap on people with disabilities to be served by the waiver programs in Tennessee is 550. However, the requirements are so restrictive that only half of those slots are used. At last count there were 258 people in Tennessee on long-term support Medicaid waiver programs.

• There is no consumer control in any of the programs.

• Unlicensed people cannot preform health related tasks.

• 166 children are in the Arlington Developmental Center in Memphis, we could not get a statewide number of kids in institutions.

• In 1994, Tennessee had only about 1,500 people getting homemaker services and had 3,200 on waiting lists. The ARC of Tennessee reports that 533 families are on a waiting list for respite care.

• "Working Quads" serves only 15 people in Tennessee. No significant state programs exist.

• 1525 complaints of abuse and neglect were made against Tennessee nursing homes in 1997. [Tennessee Commission on Aging]

• Furthermore, Memphis Tennessee, in our opinion, has the worst nursing home administrator. Ron Arrison, Director of the King's Daughters and Sons home for the incurables, has attempted to block ADAPT from meeting in his facility and filling his residents heads with false hopes.

Return to the top of the page

Formed in 1990, the first chapter in Tennessee, ADAPT of Memphis represents Memphians with various disabilities seeking inclusion and access. Twice Memphis activists have "carried the national theme" at crucial moments.

e-mail Deborah Cunningham

National ADAPT:

Texas ADAPT/INCITEMENT:

Tennessee ADAPT (Memphis):