MiCASSA Kick-Off

Editor’s Note: On June 5, 2003 at the Dirksen Office Building in Washington DC, Congress members held a “kick-off” for MiCASSA. The legislation was introduced in the Senate as S. 971 and in the House as HR 2032. Following are some of the comments made by people at the kick-off.

	Tom Harkin “The President has said he wants to turn Medicaid into a bloc grant. . .I want you to know that I am absolutely, irrevocably and totally opposed to bloc granting Medicaid.” “Under the bloc grant proposal it still has to provide nursing care facilities but they wouldn’t have to provide community based care. And tey call this reform. That is not reform, my friend, that is retreat. That is going back to the dark ages and we are not going to go there. “Some people say ‘well MiCASSA costs too much money.’ You know they remind me of the people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Yoshiko Dart But the job of democracy is far from finished. The revelation of empowerment will go on. You are leading it today, you will lead it tomorrow, you will never, never, never give up. We shall free our people, we shall overcome, freedom now, independence now, pass MiCASSA now, free our people!
	Bob Kafka It ain’t going to happen by just visits here in Washington, through that is going to help. What its going to need is we are going to have to go back and keep fighting, and fighting and fighting. Because if we think we can do it with just one visit, one phone call one e-mail, on letter; then we are gonna lose. But I know because of the energy and commitment of the people in this room and around the country, that we will win. This is our civil right. We will fight for those civil rights; we need to make commitments to fight for those civil rights. If we think we can do it by being nice; we are wrong.