Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

White House Sends U.N. Disability Treaty to the Senate for Ratification

Excerpt from Planet of the Blind: (click for entire article)

In 2009, Fifth Freedom reported that President Obama signed the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. On Thursday, May 17, the Convention was finally sent to the Senate for approval.

By adopting the Convention, the United States would join more than 140 other countries in committing themselves to protecting the rights of people with disabilities, passing laws and regulations to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, and repealing any laws that might lead to discrimination.

Article 1 of the Convention states that its purpose is to "promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity".

Among others, the rights of people with disabilities described in the Convention include:

    Living independently
    Being included in the community
    Personal mobility
    Education
    Health
    Participation in political and public life
    Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sports
    The right to accessible public transportation

Sebelius At Georgetown Calls For 'Conversation and Compromise'

Excerpt from Kaiser Health News: (click for entire article)

Reuters/Chicago Tribune: Health Secretary Urges Contraception Compromise
U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a speech at Georgetown University a few miles from the White House, praised the new U.S. healthcare law requiring coverage and called for "conversation and compromise." ... About 20 protesters lined a campus entrance amid beefed up security, and a heckler, who interrupted Sebelius by calling her a "baby killer," was led away by campus police (Heavey, 5/18).

The Hill: Sebelius Stays Away From Contraception Fight At Georgetown
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius didn't mention the controversy over the administration's contraception mandate during a Friday commencement speech at Georgetown University. ... Sebelius noted in her speech that public policy debates can be contentious and the conversations over difficult issues "can be painful." "But this is a strength of our country, not a weakness," said Sebelius. "In some countries around the world, it is much easier to make policy," she said. "The leader delivers an edict and it goes into effect. There’s no debate, no press, no criticism, no second guessing" (Viebeck, 5/18).

USDOJ: Justice Department Settles with Flint, Michigan, to Make Voting Accessible to People with Disabilities

Excerpt from 7th Space: (click for entire article)

The Justice Department today announced a settlement under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with the city of Flint, Mich ., to make all the city’s polling places more accessible for individuals with mobility impairments.   The case was commenced based on a complaint from the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, and was investigated jointly by the Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Michigan.

Under the terms of the settlement, the city of Flint recognizes that accessible polling places are the cornerstone of its voting accessibility program and will make all of its polling places accessible to people with disabilities by the November 2012 elections.   The settlement also requires that accessibility will be a major factor in the city’s choices of future polling places.   To assist Flint to make its elections accessible, the Justice Department will provide technical assistance to the city in deciding whether a polling place location can be made accessible on Election Day.

“Voters with disabilities in the city of Flint will now have the opportunity to exercise their franchise in the same way as other voters in Flint,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “We applaud the city’s commitment in ensuring equal access to the polls before the upcoming fall elections.”

Fighting for justice as one community

Patti's Comments:  Please read the weekly address from the director if you are interested in another perspective on the protests in DC.

Excerpt from AAPD: (click for entire article)

We are one community. One movement. No exceptions.

I am outraged today because 74 courageous and engaged disability rights activists are being unjustly singled out by a seemingly vindictive D.C. attorney’s office – more concerned with clamping down on free speech in our nation’s capital, than with protecting the fundamental right to protest and petition our government. These 74 Americans were arrested in DC on April 23rd while protesting the U.S. House’s plan to cut $800 billion from Medicaid. They had come here from all over the country to protect a program that provides health care and other vital tools to millions of people.

The D.C. attorney’s office is demanding that the 74 return to DC from all over the country to appear in court this coming Tuesday.  Getting arrested for a good cause is a time honored tradition in our nations’ capital. Usually, people pay a small fine. Not this time.

Iowan's struggle brought greater disability rights

Excerpt from DesMoines Register: (click for entire article)

Katie Beckett’s family hoped that by catching a president’s attention they could force bureaucrats to free their 3-year-old from a Cedar Rapids hospital.

They never dreamed that her case would bring landmark changes allowing hundreds of thousands of American children with disabilities to live at home instead of in institutions.

Beckett, whose name became synonymous with disability rights, died Friday morning at St. Luke’s Hospital.

Beckett, 34, spent most of the first three years of her life at St. Luke’s after a bout of encephalitis infected her brain, caused a coma and left her with severe breathing problems. Her parents’ insurance ran out, so the case fell to Medicaid, the public insurance program. Doctors determined she could leave the hospital with proper supports at home. Medicaid refused to pay for such care, even though it would cost one-sixth as much as hospital care.

The informed majority

Excerpt from The Economist: (click for entire article)

IN MOST opinion polls, Americans appear reluctant to cut defence spending. Of course, in most opinion polls Americans appear reluctant to cut everything apart from foreign aid. Despite all of the hand-wringing over the federal budget, the truth is most people don't have a firm grasp of how their money is spent. So the Program for Public Consultation (PPC), in collaboration with the Stimson Center and the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), tried to educate a group of Americans on one aspect of the budget. Last month they showed a representative sample of Americans the size of the defence budget from different viewpoints and presented them with arguments for and against cutting funds. The idea was to simulate a congressional debate; to put participants in the shoes of those actually voting on the budget.

Thank Congress for Helping Military Kids with Autism!

Excerpt from Autism Votes: (click for entire article)

The U.S. House of Representatives has just approved a bipartisan amendment that will help our members of the military by dramatically improving their access to quality care for their dependents with autism. The vote came on an amendment to the Department of Defense bill that was sponsored by Representative John Larson of Connecticut. Under the current system, our military members lose coverage for medically recommended behavioral health treatments (specifically Applied Behavior Analysis) when they leave active duty, even when they are forced to retire due to injuries sustained in combat. Existing ABA benefits are limited and often fall short of minimum standards and prescribed levels of care placing an undue financial strain on many military families.

Age Discrimination's Impact Disputed In Congressional Hearing On Unemployment

Excerpt from The Huffington Post: (click for entire article)

Philadelphia resident Sheila Whitelaw lost her job as a manager at a clothing store when the store closed in 2010. She suspects she hasn't found steady work since because she's too old.

"At 71 years of age, I didn't know how long it might take to find a job; the economy was in bad shape with millions of people out of work," Whitelaw, now 73, said Tuesday. "I started sending out my resume to hundreds of jobs. I have had about 15 interviews, but I rarely even receive a response afterward. It then occurred to me that a potential employee could look me up on the internet, and lo and behold, there was my age, clearly printed for all to see! I sensed my inability to find work had something to do with age, but I couldn't prove it."

Obama administration presents national plan to fight Alzheimer’s disease

Excerpt from HHS.gov: (click for entire article)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today released an ambitious national plan to fight Alzheimer’s disease. The plan was called for in the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA), which President Obama signed into law in January 2011. The National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease sets forth five goals, including the development of effective prevention and treatment approaches for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by 2025.

In February 2012, the administration announced that it would take immediate action to implement parts of the plan, including making additional funding available in fiscal year 2012 to support research, provider education and public awareness. Today, the Secretary announced additional specific actions, including the funding of two major clinical trials, jumpstarted by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) infusion of additional FY 2012 funds directed at Alzheimer’s disease; the development of new high-quality, up-to-date training and information for our nation’s clinicians; and a new public education campaign and website to help families and caregivers find the services and support they need.

To help accelerate this urgent work, the President’s proposed FY 2013 budget provides a $100 million increase for efforts to combat Alzheimer’s disease. These funds will support additional research ($80 million), improve public awareness of the disease ($4.2 million), support provider education programs ($4.0 million), invest in caregiver support ($10.5 million), and improve data collection ($1.3 million).

Mayer: Nonprofits, Politics, and Privacy

Excerpt from TaxProf Blog: (click for entire article)

With the rapidly increasing flows of money into politics and accompanying calls for greater disclosure of the sources of those funds, the time is ripe for a deeper consideration of the policy concerns that underlie disclosure requirements and the related issue of privacy. One important aspect of this deeper consideration is recognizing that this particular area is at the intersection of three significantly different disclosure regimes. Those three regimes are (1) federal tax law generally, (2) federal tax law as it applies to tax-exempt nonprofit organizations, and (3) federal election law. These regimes are a study in contrasts. Federal tax law strongly protects taxpayer information from public disclosure. Federal tax exemption law strongly favors public disclosure of institutional information, but it is more ambivalent about public disclosure of information relating to individuals. Federal election law strongly favors public disclosure of all relevant financial information, including information relating to individuals. Understanding the reasons for these differences is important when determining whether disclosures at the intersection of the three regimes are appropriate and desirable. The other, related aspect of this deeper consideration is privacy. The concept of privacy is one that is instantly recognizable and yet theoretically, much less legally, hard to define. This difficulty stems in part from the many possible applications of the privacy concept. Fortunately for the purposes of this Article, the context here is fairly clear and narrow: the public disclosure of information relating to nonprofit organizations involved in politics and their supporters. Even in this narrow context, however, there are at least two competing approaches with respect to privacy. One approach takes a cost-benefit approach. It judges disclosure requirements based on their quantifiable costs and benefits, including among those costs the harm to privacy, however measured. The other, less frequently used approach is a right-to-privacy approach that considers privacy a fundamental right that can only be abridged if there is a relatively strong interest for doing so and then only to the extent required to further that interest.