ADAPT recap on Senate HELP Committee long-term care hearing
Today's hearing in the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions, HELP,
Committee was terrific! Over 300 people were in the audience in the main hearing
room, and another hundred were in an overflow room the committee had arranged.
In the crowd there was a sea of orange ADAPT shirts, appropriately emblazoned
with the message Community Choice Act Free Our People It's Time!
The panel had six who were invited to testify; they presented a well balanced
picture of the many facets of the need for more and better community services.
Andy Imparato of AAPD spoke on behalf of ADAPT, SABE and NCIL as well as AAPD
and talked about the Community Choice Act as well as the CLASS Act and the
general problems in the system. A home care worker who was a member of SEIU gave
the workers perspectives on the issue.
The mother of a child with a disability spoke about the family's perspective and
the need for more community supports for children. Susan Daniels gave the
consumer's perspective on the limits on community service options. A provider of
Developmental Disability services and a woman who used to work with the Area
Agencies on Aging and now is active with the ADRCs gave the perspectives of some
providers of services. Everyone spoke of the broken long term care system and
the institutional bias in Medicaid and in general, the need for more community
choices and the need to fix the system now before the demand becomes even
greater.
Both the Committee Chair Senator Kennedy of MA and the Ranking Minority Member
Senator Enzi of WY were there for all the testimony of the panel members and
Senator Murkowski of AK and Senator Brown of OH listened carefully to the
testimony. Senator Harkin spoke passionately about the importance of the issue
and the Community Choice Act as well as about the contributions of ADAPT in this
struggle. Senator Kennedy also spoke passionately about the great need for and
importance of choices and community services.
Everyone felt that the message had been well sent and received and that the
hearing moved the issue forward at a critical time, as health care grows in
importance. They were glad the hearing had been held to address the many facets
of the need for more community services.
After the hearing about 50 ADAPT members went over to the offices of Senator
Baucus of MT, Chair of the Finance Committee where the Community Choice Act S.
799 has been referred. Earlier this spring Senator Specter of PA, at the bequest
of ADAPT, had gotten a commitment for a hearing on S 799, but still no date has
been set. The group met with the Staff Director of the Committee and he promised
to have a date certain (in the early fall) set by this Thursday.
If you would like to add your voice to the call to set a date for this hearing
you can! Advocates from across the country are faxing Senator Baucus to thank
him for his commitment and asking for the hearing to be scheduled. You can fax
the Senator from the internet by going to this link:
http://capwiz.com/rochestercdr/issues/alert/?alertid=9958786
