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The House Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee Hearing on the
Community Choice Act and related issues was very successful. Thanks to all of
you and your efforts to get members to attend! 14 Members were present -
which is a very good turn out. All but about 3 who attended made an opening
statement for the record.
These statements, their questions after the witnesses testified, and the tone
of the whole hearing were in sharp contrast to 10 years ago when the
Subcommittee held the first hearing on MiCASA. In the past ten years it is
clear that the members' understanding of the issues has grown. Some have had
family members who needed long term care and all have heard from constituents
and others on the issue. Their statements were almost uniformly supportive of
home and community based services and several mentioned they were co-sponsors
of the Community Choice Act HR 1621 and related bills including CLASS and two
bills on direct care workers issues. (They are available at the link below.)
The room was divided so the Democrats sat on one side and the Republicans on
the other, but both sides were quite interested in the proceedings. The
Democrats were very concerned about recent changes in Medicaid policy
regarding rehabilitation services and transportation for children with
disabilities, in addition to the very negative changes to the Case Management
rules for helping people moving out under MFP and related efforts.
The audience was again a sea of orange T-shirts supporting the Community
Choice Act, almost 100 people in that room alone! But there were also two
overflow rooms filled with supporters of CCA and home and community services.
Rochester ADAPT (a.k.a., the nation) arrived in busloads at the Capitol at
5:30 am to make sure they had good seats, and supporters also came en mass
from Philly, from Maryland, from Virginia, from DC (including the DC CIL),
Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Texas, Iowa among other places.
The panel of folks testifying all spoke in support of ending the institutional
bias. Diane Rowland, Executive Director of the Kaiser Commission opened with
an overview of Medicaid; Stephanie Thomas testified for ADAPT speaking mainly
on CCA but also ending the institutional bias and fixing the Case Management
new rule debacle. ResCare President & CEO Ralph Groenfeld spoke on the need
for better wages and benefits for direct care workers and on ways to economize
on service delivery; Celine Fortin of the Arc of NJ talked about negative CMS
rule changes as well as the CLASS Act, Community Choice Act Direct Support
Professionals Fairness and Security Act; Aileen McCormick President and CEO
of AmeriGroup Texas talked about how her company was working on long term care
and promoting community services and told the story of a man, Henry, whom
AmeriGroup and ADAPT had helped to get out of a nursing home after he got
stuck in one after Katrina; she also said AmeriGroup and AHIP support CCA!
Julie Becket, Policy Director of Family Voices spoke about Medicaid options to
help transition to work, and buying-in to Medicaid and against limits to EPSDT
and targeted case management. All of the testimony is available in the
archives section of the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.
The hearing went well, and it is clear we need to press on and use this
momentum! More co-sponsors will help, as well as more talk with all our
Representatives and Senators urging them to act now and pass the CCA!
This is a press release from the Energy and Commerce Committee about the
hearing:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110nr177.shtml
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This is the website page where you can find all the testimony of all the
witnesses (click on the person's name for their testimony):
http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-he-hrg.011608.MedicaidDisabilit
ies.shtml
in addition you can find at that location
and a link to a saved display of the hearing that you can watch and/or
download
NATIONAL ADAPT MAILING LIST - Adapt Community Choice Act List
http://www.adapt.org
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