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For Immediate Release
September 11, 2007
http://www.adapt.org
For Information contact:
Bruce Darling 585-370-6690B
Marsha Katz 406-544-9504
Gary Arnold 773-425-2536
55 Arrested as ADAPT Makes House Call on AMA
Chicago---ADAPT and the American Medical Association (AMA) both
experienced "deja-vu" Monday as 55 members of ADAPT were arrested outside
AMA headquarters when they demanded to meet with AMA Executive Vice
President and CEO, Michael Maves. Fifteen years ago in 1992 in Chicago,
ADAPT pressed the AMA to endorse home and community-based long-term care
services and supports for older and disabled Americans instead of forcing
them into nursing homes and other institutions.
"It's a sad commentary that we're back on the AMA's doorstep about the
same issue," said Rahnee Patrick, Chicago ADAPT Organizer. "It's an even
sadder commentary that after 15 years the AMA still has the same arrogant,
paternalistic attitude about people with disabilities, and that they're so
afraid of us they'd rather see us arrested than sit at the table and work
together with us."
ADAPT had four demands for the AMA including:
* Endorse the Community Choice Act (S. 799, H.R. 1621) which is federal
legislation that would give people eligible for nursing home and/or
institutional placement a choice to choose community services instead;
* Work with ADAPT to develop an action plan that assures that people with
disabilities and seniors get REAL CHOICE in long-term care
services/supports so they are able to live in the legally required "most
integrated setting," and provide the AMA membership with continuing
medical education programs about community-based alternatives to
institutionalization;
* Develop an AMA ethics policy requiring doctors to disclose to their
patients any financial interest they have in a nursing facility when they
are discussing long-term care with those patients, and to not refer any
patient to a nursing home in which the doctor has a financial interest;
* Require that AMA Board of Trustees and leadership divest themselves of
all financial interests in nursing facilities, etc.
"With the swipe of a pen, a doctor can take away your freedom by sending
you to a nursing home when you're discharged from a hospital rather than
exploring options in the community," said Diane Coleman, ADAPT Organizer
from Chicago. "I can only wonder if a number of those referrals come
because many doctors have ownership interest in nursing homes."
ADAPT wrote Dr. Maves in July, 2007, asking the AMA to join 500 other
national, state and local organizations in endorsing the Community Choice
Act, asking for a response by September 7. Monday's protest followed the
lack of an appropriate response by Maves to the ADAPT letter, and the
ten-year long lack of AMA endorsement for legislation similar to the
current Community Choice Act.
"If the AMA thinks that today is the end of our fight, they are sadly
mistaken," added Patrick. Doctors make a very good living on the backs of
people with disabilities, and we will not let them continue to push us
around and put us in institutions."
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FOR MORE INFORMATION on ADAPT visit our website at http://www.adapt.org/
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