[QUAD-L] (no subject)

[DAANOO]

Please contact your Governors to support this. Dana(C4-5, 30 years post)  The New Mexico folks are to be congratulated!!!! NM Governor Bill Richardson has signed and endorsed the National Governor's Association resolution! Background: at the NGA meeting in Seattle this past summer ADAPT got Pennsylvania Governor Rendell to agree to introduce this resolution supporting MiCASSA, Money Follows the Person, Olmstead implementation and more. The Resolution will be introduced and voted on in the NGA February meeting and the more Governors we have supporting it, the better. We need your help with this. Has your Governor signed on? ************* RESOLUTION Commitment To Community-based Long Term Care Services and Support WHEREAS millions of people with disabilities and older Americans currently need or will need long term services and supports to live in the community and this number is expected to grow at a rapid pace over the next three decades; and WHEREAS the current long term care system is fragmented, overly medicalized, bureaucratic, expensive with an institutional bias that unnecessarily forces people with disabilities and older Americans in nursing homes and other institutions; and WHEREAS the Supreme Court in the Olmstead vs. LC & EW decision ruled in 1999 that people have the right to services in the most integrated setting; and WHEREAS the American public overwhelmingly supports long term care services and supports be provided in their own home and communities; and WHEREAS the reform of the long term care (services and supports) system must be a cooperative partnership between the federal government, the states and the disability/older community, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the National Governors Association, NGA, by a vote of the membership and the Executive Committee supports the following: A) The current long term services and support system has an institutional bias that must be reformed through a cooperative effort by the federal government, the states and the disability/older community including those who use services; and B) The long term services and support system must include the principles that home and community services and supports are the first priority and that support services should be provided in the most integrated setting; and C) No person with a disability or older American should be forced into a nursing home or other institution because of the lack of integrated home and community options; and D) People with disabilities and older Americans must have full inclusion in the design, implementation and review of the long term services and support system; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA supports the passage and funding of the Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act, MiCASSA (currently S971 - HR 2032) and legislation that include the Money Follows the Person initiative (currently S.1394 - HR 1811); and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA work with the individual states to assure that the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision is aggressively implemented and that the measure of this implementation be, in a year, how many people have gotten out of nursing homes and other institutions and how many people have been diverted from nursing homes and other institutions; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA work with the states to assure that any 1115 waivers submitted by a State should have statewide public hearings before development and submission to HHS, and that the 1115 waiver process should not be used to undercut current community Medicaid services and federal protections; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the NGA supports reform of the long term services and support system that does not result in block granting, capitating or otherwise reducing or eliminating funding to the states or the removal of the current national Medicaid protections. Passed this day ____________ February 2005 NATIONAL ADAPT MAILING LIST - Adapt MiCASA List http://www.adapt.org