DAY SIXTY-SEVEN: Senator Frist’s Office Hides in Ivory White Tower

Ten ADAPT activists from Memphis and Chicago faced off with Defense Systems Group and the Memphis Police Department while trying to visit Senator Bill Frist’s office. Louis Patrick, the first to arrive and try to enter the building was stopped by personnel from Defense Systems Group. Defense Systems Group is contracted by In-Rel Management to provide security at Clark Tower. 

“They didn’t even know why I was here,” said Louis Patrick, “The security person wouldn’t let me in because they saw someone with a disability coming and that I shouldn’t be allowed in. What, because I use a wheelchair In-Rel Management wants to exclude me? That’s discrimination!” As soon as the rest of ADAPT arrived the security personnel called the Memphis Police.

Immediately upon arrival the Memphis Police threatened arrest. After phone calls up to Frist’s office, two of his office representatives emerged from the Ivory Tower. “It was the same rhetoric”, said Deborah Cunningham, “They wanted us to continue to write letters and ask for a meeting. We have tried that for a long time with no results.”

The ADAPT activists explained to the Senator’s Representatives that through the typical system they had been ignored. Furthermore, they were not leaving until they talked with Senator Frist or at least guaranteed an appointment for a phone meeting with the Senator to discuss the merits of MiCASSA. The Senator’s Representatives even declined to allow a couple of the activists’ access to the Senator’s office in order to call his scheduler in Washington D.C. 

The Senator’s Representatives then stated that the Clark Tower’s management company, In-Rel Management, had a policy that allowed them to keep constituents from accessing their Senator’s office. When asked if we could see this policy the Senator’s Representatives referred us to security and then promptly left. Security informed us that “Miss Management” would not provide us with the policy, her name or her contact information.

After a two hour stand off between the ADAPT activists and the Memphis Police Department, Senator Frist’s representatives came back down from their Ivory Tower and guaranteed to coordinate a meeting with the Senator’s Healthcare liaison and the activists. After a brutally hot day in the Memphis sun, the ADAPT activists accepted the offer but vowed to hold them to it.

Currently Medicaid leaves the decision how states provide long term care up to each individual state. Unfortunately that allows states, like Tennessee, to choose the most expensive and least wanted form of long term care, nursing homes. In Tennessee there are 6,458 individuals who have expressed they want out of the nursing home. Tennessee spends $898 million a year in nursing home expenditures. Tennessee only spends $6 million for home and community based services

There is another option, Senate Bill 401, or known by many as MiCASSA. MiCASSA would change the federal Medicaid rules so that states would provide choices to people of how and WHERE they would receive the services they need. 

Free Our People!

Randy Alexander
1633 Madison Avenue
Memphis TN 38104
(901) 726-6404