How is your week going?
Here are your three disability-related links for Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
1. Biden Pushes Plan To Improve Services For People With Disabilities
Michelle Diament, Disability Scoop - April 12, 2024
“‘We’re going to expand Medicaid home care services and reduce that 700,000-person backlog,’ Biden told family caregivers, care workers and other advocates gathered in Washington. ‘That’ll mean more folks can live and work in their own communities with dignity and independence. More home care workers will start getting a better pay and benefits and dignity they deserve.’”
President Biden is referring here to the backlog of roughly 700,000 people who are eligible for home and community based care services, but are on waiting lists to get those services simply for lack of funding. From a disability policy standpoint these waiting lists are one of the highest priority issues going into the U.S. General Elections. Candidates for both federal and state office should be urged to support increases in state and federal funds to reduce or eliminate those waiting lists. There is no better time to do this, and few disability issues as politically uncontroversial as making it easier for disabled and elderly people to keep living in their own homes, while paying home care workers a living wage.
2. AAPD Praises New Rules from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Jess Davidson, American Association of People with Disabilities - April 26, 2024
“‘While it has been a persistent goal of the disability rights movement to end institutional bias and make it possible for everyone who needs it to receive support in their homes and communities. Until that day, people in nursing homes deserve high quality care, and the people providing this care deserve dignity in their work,’ said Maria Town, AAPD President & CEO. ‘Those receiving home- and community-based care have struggled to retain and have long-term relationships with high-quality care workers because of low wages and high turnover. We are pleased that the Biden-Harris administration continues to prioritize strengthening the care workforce and is taking action to reduce abuse and neglect of disabled people in nursing homes.’”
This press announcement includes more details about the administrative changes the Biden Administration recently announced. These are measures that don’t require passing bills in Congress, and they don’t seem to include any additional funding. They are the kind of measures a President can take when Congress won’t or can’t act due to deep partisanship and polarized ideology. It’s also worth noting here that AAPD’s statement supports measures to improve both home care and nursing home staffing. Disability rights organizations like AAPD don’t often focus on making nursing homes better, because their highest priority is eventually replacing all or most institutional care with more plentiful home-based assistance to people who need it. Maria Town notes this in her comments. But as she also notes, people who live in nursing facilities and other institutions have very immediate needs that aren’t adequately addressed by putting all of their hopes into an eventual revolution in long term care. At the same time, there’s always a risk that immediate, practical, humanitarian needs will overwhelm and squeeze out equally essential efforts at broader, more structural changes that will eventually make life better and freer for all disabled people. It’s a difficult balance for “big tent” disability organizations to maintain.
3. Disney’s Line-Cutting Policy Sent Us Backward
Mike Ervin, The Progressive - April 26, 2024
“Recently, Disney announced it was revamping its access policy yet again because obtaining a pass for not waiting in line because of a disability had become the most widely-requested service at its parks. Starting this summer, the company announced, those seeking this accommodation will be questioned by medical professionals in an attempt to determine if they do indeed qualify.”
It sounds like the earlier procedures were actually being abused, though how much and how often is always debatable. And the cure for this kind of thing — making accommodation processes harder, with more hoops and humiliation — is usually worse for actual disabled people than the original problem. Watch this space for more details and perspectives on Disney’s new disability accommodation policies in the next few days.
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