Health and Disability

 Members of the Atlantis Community CIL and Denver ADAPT met with the
Republican presumptive presidential candidate John McCain at a Town Hall Meeting today. Six members of ADAPT, including teenagers from the Summer Youth Program, sat in the front of the auditorium to listen to McCain's policies for his administration. When he took comments from the audience he handed the microphone
to Dawn Russell. She explained the legislation called the Community Choice Act and asked him why he was not signed on. Mr. McCain stated he would not support the legislation. He then offered several poor reasons for his decision and ended by saying we would have to let thevoters decide that one. Having recaptured the microphone, he did state he supported the ADA, but had no interest in hearing that the ADA was entirely different from the CCA.

CCA supports putting control in the hands of the individual instead of Government, it supports states' ability to use limited Medicaid funds for community services which people prefer and which are
more cost effective.

Presumptive Presidential Candidate Barak Obama has signed on as a co-sponsor to the bill already.

ADAPT's Statement on CCA:

For decades, people with disabilities, both old and young, have wanted alternatives to nursing homes and other institutions when they need long term services. Our long term care system has a heavy institutional bias

Norman DeLisle, MDRC
"With Liberty and Access for All!"
GrandCentral: 517-589-4081
MDRC Website: http://www.copower.org/
LTC Blog: http://ltcreform.blogspot.com/
Recovery: http://therecoveringlife.blogspot.com/
Change: http://prosynergypsc.blogspot.com/

For Immediate Release
April 29, 2008

For information contact:
Bob Kafka 512-431-4085
Marsha Katz 406-544-9504
http://www.adapt.org

ADAPT Announces 10 Best and Worst States for Community Services

Washington, D.C.--- In the plaza of the Hall of the States, ADAPT
announced the 2008 Ten Best and Ten Worst States in the delivery of home
and community services to people with disabilities and older Americans.
The Hall of States building is home to the National Governors Association,
an organization that has been very vocal in recent years about the
preference of community services over nursing homes and other
institutions, yet has not been able to inspire its own members to improve
their provision of those services.

Speakers representing states inB both the best and worst categories spoke
at the press conferenceB about the horrors of nursing home life and the
joys of living in the community in those states that provide good
community services. Randy Alexander from Tennessee ADAPT and LaTonya
Reeves from Colorado ADAPT also spoke of the
disability-underground-railroad that assists people in states without
community services to move to states where they can live quality lives in
their own homes with the supports and services they need.

The grouping of states into the top and bottom tenB was based on publicly
available data from highly respected researchers, supplemented by the
results of an informal survey widely distributed across the country by
ADAPT. As has so often been the case over the years, there were few
surprises. Many of the ten states doing the poorest job of providing
services that allow citizens to receive long term care in their own homes
in the community have been on the "worst" list over and over.

The states are listed alphabetically, not ranked numerically;

TEN BEST STATES
Alaska Colorado
Maine Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota
New Hampshire
Oregon
Rhode Island
Vermont

HONORABLE MENTION
Kansas
New York
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming

TEN WORST STATES
Arkansas Georgia Florida Illinois Indiana
Louisiana
Mississippi
North Dakota
Tennessee
Texas

DISHONORABLE MENTION
Alabama
District of Columbia
New Jersey
Ohio
Pennsylvania

"No state is ideal, and no state is all bad in how it provides home and
community services," said Bob Kafka, ADAPT National Organizer. "This, as
always, is simply a snapshot based on current information from the Kaiser
Commission, the Research and Training Center on Community Living at the
University of Minnesota, Thomson Healthcare, and our survey. People are
welcome to email me at bob.adapt@sbcglobal.net for more information."

# # #
FOR MORE INFORMATION on ADAPT visit our website at http://www.adapt.org/

The Community Choice Act levels the playing field and assures choice in the long term “care” system. Right now, institutional “care” is mandated by the federal government. States MUST pay for nursing facility care. The Community Choice Act doesn’t create a new mandate, but it expands the existing mandate so that people who would be eligible for placement in a facility could have the CHOICE to live in the community with supports. The Community Choice Act would require that states have a community-based option for people who would otherwise be placed in an institutional setting. Until we get the Community Choice Act passed, institutional “care” will remain the standard/norm. As other states have run into financial problems, they have cut community based services in order to maintain funding for nursing facilities because the institutions are REQUIRED under federal Medicaid law and community services are not.