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

Michigan AG Nessel Joins 20 Attorneys General Urging Congress to Take Action on PFAS

Media Contact: Kelly Rossman-McKinney (o) 517-335-7666  (c) 517-512-9342 Dan Olsen (o) 517-335-7666  (c) 517-290-7807 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 Michigan AG Nessel Joins 20 Attorneys General Urging Congress to Take Action on PFAS LANSING - Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel today joined 20 Attorneys General in sending a letter urging Congress to pass legislation that aids states in addressing the public health threat presented by the toxic “forever” chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). “Michigan has already taken a proactive approach to regulate PFAS contaminants in groundwater by implementing regulations on this contaminant without waiting for the federal government,” Nessel said. “But like all states, our efforts to address PFAS contamination will be aided by uniform, protective national standards and we’re counting on Congress’ help to make that happen.” The letter sent to Congressional leadership today calls for action to help states address and prevent the growing dangers of these super-resilient, man-made chemicals that are contaminating drinking water and groundwater nationwide. The letter also urges Congress to provide financial assistance to state and local governments to offset the high cost of cleaning up drinking water supplies.  The group’s letter comes just one month after Attorney General Nessel and Michigan’s Departments of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, and Health and Human Services, each filed comments urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen its interim PFAS standards to better protect the health, safety and welfare of the state’s residents, all Americans and the environment. Michigan is one of only a few states that has issued enforceable standards for the two chemicals addressed in the EPA’s recommendations: perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perflurorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). The state has water quality standards, cleanup criteria for groundwater used as drinking water, and cleanup criteria for the groundwater-surface water interface to protect the health, safety and welfare of residents and the environment. “This is a nationwide challenge and it’s important that we all work swiftly and in a bipartisan fashion so all who live here can have access to clean drinking water and a safe environment,” Nessel added. Across the country, PFAS contamination is most often found at military bases, firefighting training centers, civilian airports, and industrial facilities. Like other states, Michigan has spent tens of millions of dollars over the last two years to investigate and remediate PFAS contamination and identify responsible parties. While the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have advanced legislation that addresses issues related to PFAS contamination, the Attorneys General urge Congress to deal with “the most urgent legislative needs” of states as they work on a final agreement on this legislation. These urgent needs, based on states’ firsthand experience include:   Designating certain PFAS chemicals as “hazardous substances” under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), otherwise known as “Superfund.” This designation is key to cleaning up some of the most dangerous PFAS-contaminated sites in the country, including U.S. Department of Defense sites and so-called “orphan” sites, where the responsible parties have not been identified or located, or have simply failed to act.  Adding the entire class of PFAS chemicals to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), which requires certain industrial facilities to report on the amount of specific toxic chemicals released into the environment annually. This would provide critical information about new potential sources of these chemicals, as well as the areas of potential contamination.      Providing funding for remediation of PFAS-contaminated drinking water supplies – particularly those in disadvantaged communities where residents’ water bills rise as a result of their municipality struggling to afford the high costs associated with cleaning up PFAS. Prohibiting the use and storage of firefighting foam containing PFAS at military bases and other federal facilities as soon as possible and in the meantime, providing immediate protective measures, especially when firefighting foam is used.  Providing medical screening of PFAS exposure for appropriate personnel and members of the public, including but not limited to firefighters.      Joining Attorney General Nessel in the letter are the Attorneys General of California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Guam, Hawai’i, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. The full letter can be read here.   # # #

A Sense of Community: How Rochester Became a Hub for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Individuals

By Sarah Friedmann - Daily Beast

 

On June 16, the city of Rochester, New York celebrated its tenth annual Deaf Festival, gathering at a local park to share and celebrate Deaf culture. Rochester is home to one of the largest deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHoH) populations in the United States, and June’s festivities served to honor those that helped shape this community – and those who are continuing to foster its growth.

Educational Roots

The DHoH community has roots in Rochester that date all the way back to 1876, when the Rochester School for the Deaf opened. Initially, the school taught its pupils to communicate primarily via fingerspelling and speech, a method of signing that is sometimes referred to as the "Rochester Method."

While the Rochester School provided an initial draw for the deaf community, the city began attracting DHoH individuals in much higher numbers almost a century later. In 1965, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) opened its doors in the city, becoming the first-ever technological college in the world for DHoH students. The school was established by Congress with the goal of promoting “the employment of persons who are deaf by providing technical and professional education." The NTID is one of the nine colleges of the Rochester Institute of Technology and currently enrolls around one thousand students per year.

Businesses Begin to Respond and Adapt

The NTID has certainly played a significant role in drawing a large DHOH community to Rochester, with students and alumni taking up residency in the city. Notably, as Syracuse.com pointed out, all NTID associate degree students are required to complete off-campus internships, which typically result in them taking a wide variety of jobs throughout the city. This has meant that the business community in Rochester has evolved to better meet the needs of DHoH interns (and alumni employees) – and the DHoH community has played a very active role in shaping the trajectory of business development in the city.

As businesses in Rochester evolved to better accommodate DHoH employees, social services and consumer outlets also began actively taking steps to meet their needs. “Bars and restaurants — and even local television news reports — turned on captioning long before news tickers became common,” Teri Weaver of Syracuse.com wrote. “Hospitals began staffing interpreters. Hair stylists and bartenders who learned ASL attracted loyal clients. And as the major factories downsized, video relay services and other communications businesses opened. All the while, a parish for deaf people grew.”

A Sense of Liberation

The vibrant student and alumni DHoH community in Rochester, coupled with the city’s evolution to become more DHoH-friendly, drew more and more DHoH individuals to live in Rochester over time, as the city became a place where they felt they could live most fully as themselves, the New York Times reported back in 2006. Francis Kimmes, a deaf individual who moved to Rochester in 1962 after spending many years in Niagara Falls — where he was one of only a few DHoH individuals — said he felt liberated when he moved to Rochester. “I felt more free,” Kimmes said through an interpreter. “It hit me. It was powerful.”

Alexandra Ling, a former student at the Institute who decided to remain in Rochester, shared similar sentiments. “When I first moved here, I was shocked to see so many deaf people,” Ling wrote to the paper in an email in 2006. “I decided to stay here because I felt really comfortable. People at stores and restaurants understand deafness, so there’s a lot less communication barriers even though they are hearing.”

 

 

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Consumer Voice Executive Director Offers Recommendations During Today's Senate Finance Committee Hearing

July 23, 2019

 

Consumer Voice Executive Director Lori Smetanka was a witness during today's Senate Finance Committee Hearing - "Promoting Elder Justice: A Call for Reform."

Lori testified that although federal law requires nursing homes to provide residents with services that help attain and maintain their highest practicable physical, mental and psychosocial well-being, reports continue to indicate that too many nursing homes fail to meet minimum standards of care that they voluntarily agreed to follow as a requirement of participating in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  Lori's testimony highlighted recommendations including:

• Requiring standards for a sufficient, well-trained, well-supervised workforce
• Establishing standards and oversight for facility ownership and operations, and expanding accountability to the corporate level
• Implementing, enforcing and preventing the rollback of standards
• Increasing transparency of information
• Strengthening and funding elder justice provisions

Lori's full statement is available here.

Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) provided statements. 

Other witnesses included - Megan H. Tinker, Senior Advisor for Legal Review, Office of Counsel to the Inspector General, United States Department of Health and Human Services who noted that far too often, abuse and neglect are hidden and unreported and emphasized the need for common sense safeguards to be implemented.

John E. Dicken, Director of Health Care, United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) emphasized how often abuse remains underreported, and he also reviewed the recommendations from the GAO's recent report - Nursing Homes: Improved Oversight Needed to Better Protect Residents from Abuse - including requiring state agencies to report and assess trends and identify gaps, the need for CMS to develop and disseminate guidelines and create standardized forms, and the need for CMS to confirm that all state agencies report abuse.

Robert B. Blancato, National Coordinator, Elder Justice Coalition described nursing home abuse as a national emergency and emphasized the need for better oversight by CMS, as well as the need to reauthorize the Elder Justice Act.

Mark Parkinson, President & Chief Executive Officer, American Health Care Association noted the need for collaboration to solve these problems.  He focused his remarks on creating a better background check system, adding patient satisfaction to Nursing Home Compare, and improving the shortage of nursing home workers.  He said that funding issues need to be addressed so nursing homes can focus on quality rather than how to keep their doors open.

For all witness statements, click here.

Add Your Voice By Submitting a Statement for Record

Any individual or organization wanting to present their views for inclusion in the hearing record should submit a typewritten, single-spaced statement, not exceeding 10 pages in length. Title and date of the hearing, and the full name and address of the individual or organization must appear on the first page of the statement. Statements must be received no later than two weeks following the conclusion of the hearing.

Statements must be mailed (not faxed) to:
Senate Committee on Finance
Attn. Editorial and Document Section
Rm. SD-219
Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510-6200

 

Click Here for the Article

 

 

 

 

2K TO 5K STUDENTS WOULD REPEAT THIRD GRADE IF READING LAW TOOK EFFECT TODAY

 

If Michigan’s controversial Read by Grade 3 law went into effect today, it’s estimated between 2% and 5% – or 2,000-5,000 students – would be retained to repeat third grade.

Additionally, between 7% and 11% of African American third graders, up to 10% of special education students, and between 12% and 20% of students in Partnership Schools, the lowest-performing schools in Michigan, would have to repeat third grade reading, according to the report Estimated Read by Grade 3 Retention Rates.

Michigan State University’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, EPIC, wrote the report to identify the range of potential outcomes under the law, which requires the first round of retention to take place after the 2019-2020 school year.

EPIC’s researchers used the English Language Arts portion of the 2017 – 2018 Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, or M-STEP, and retention guidelines outlined by state education officials to determine the estimates.

Although much debate over this law ­– and others like it nationally – has focused on the controversial retention component, other features of Michigan’s law include monitoring students prior to third grade and improved instructional practices for struggling students, said Katharine Strunk, co-director of EPIC and professor of education policy.

“The idea here isn’t to punitively retain students for scoring below grade level, but to improve reading instruction and student learning, therefore making retention unnecessary,” Strunk said. “We are hoping that by estimating how many kids may be at risk for retention, it will be possible to identify and help struggling students before the end of this coming school year.”

According to Strunk, these estimates align with the increasing evidence of deep inequities in early literacy proficiency.

“Nationally, there are substantial differences in student reading outcomes based on income and race but in Michigan, the early literacy problem is particularly acute,” Strunk said. “For example, in 2017, only 44% of Michigan’s third graders rated proficient or above on Michigan’s standardized assessment. The rates were even lower for certain groups: only 29% of low-income students, 32% of Hispanic students and only 20% of African American third graders were proficient.”

Strunk and the EPIC team are part of the Michigan Education Research Institute, or MERI, which will be evaluating the law’s impact on students and recommending changes along the way with the help of a five-year, nearly $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. MERI is a partnership between MSU, University of Michigan, the Michigan Department of Education and the state’s Center for Educational Performance and Information.

 

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Living With a Psychiatric Disability in an Able-Minded World

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/living-psychiatric-disability-able-minded-041052857.html

ABLEISM MIGHT STAY QUIET BUT IT GROWS WITH AGE

JULY 18TH, 2019 POSTED BY CAROLINE BROOKS-MICHIGAN STATE

 

At the same time, the findings show that people grow less likely to show how they really feel publicly.

“Disabilities are a sensitive, uncomfortable topic for many people to talk about. Few are willing to acknowledge a bias toward people with disabilities,” says William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University and senior author of the study.

“Because this is so understudied, the goal of our research was to characterize why—and which types of—people hold higher biases against those with disabilities.”

The research, published in the Journal of Social Issues, is the largest of its kind using data from 300,000 participants gathered over 13 years. Participants ranged from 18- to 90-years-old, and 15 percent classified themselves as having a disability.

Coauthors Jenna Harder, Victor Keller, and Chopik used data from Project Implicit, a platform that allows users to learn and measure biases anonymously. The platform defined a disability as “some sort of physical, mental, or emotional limitation” and asked a series of questions measuring feelings about people with disabilities.

The researchers also measured how much contact participants had with the disability community using a scale of one to seven, one being “knowing someone” and seven being “having constant contact” with a person with a disability.

IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT BIAS

The researchers used the surveys to measure implicit attitudes and explicit bias. Harder explains that an implicit attitude are thoughts or feelings that happen automatically, which are hard to control, suppress, or regulate. Explicit attitudes, she says, are the things people consciously agree with and are more controllable because it is how people express or portray their opinions about something publicly. One can think through what they are about to say and filter themselves if necessary, she says.

The researchers found that implicit bias from respondents increased over time and with age, meaning that they had less-favorable feelings toward people with disabilities. But, when asking explicitly how much participants preferred people with disabilities to be abled, they shared more positive responses with time and age, meaning that they outwardly portrayed positive opinions about people with disabilities.

“This is a big mystery because people outwardly say they feel less biased, but in actuality the implicit attitude has been getting stronger as time goes on,” Chopik says. “It’s not popular to express negative opinions about people with disabilities, so perhaps they feel inclined say nicer things publicly instead. Changes in explicit attitudes do not always lead to changes in implicit prejudice—sometimes becoming more aware of a prejudice might increase implicit prejudice.”

 

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Michigan health chief: Medicaid work rules will drive up uncompensated care, cost lives

CHAD LIVENGOOD - July 19, 2019

 

ACME — The state's top health official predicted Thursday that Michigan's forthcoming work and employment-reporting requirements for low-income adults on Medicaid will lead to more uncompensated care for hospitals and lower life expectancies.

Robert Gordon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said his agency is trying to take proactive measures to educate the nearly 680,000 low-income adults in the Healthy Michigan program about the Legislature's work requirements that go into effect Jan. 1, 2020.

"It would be easy for me in my seat to say, 'This is not our fault, it is not our problem, just let the chips fall,'" Gordon said during an appearance at the Michigan Association of Health Plans' annual conference at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa.

"We want to communicate exactly the opposite of that: It is our problem, it is all of our problems. We all know that without insurance, there will be more people in emergency rooms, there will be more uncompensated care costs. More importantly, there will be more people suffering and more people living less long than they should."

 

Gordon shared the stage Thursday at the MAHP conference with Anita Fox, director of the Department of Insurance and Financial Services, for a joint interview conducted by Crain's Senior Editor Chad Livengood.

Fox and Gordon addressed a range of topics and issues affecting the state's health insurers and medical providers, from multimillion-dollar information technology challenges at both state agencies to an ongoing study of creating a state-run reinsurance pool for high-risk, high-use medical users.

But the biggest looming issue facing the state's health insurance companies that operate Medicaid managed care plans for the state is the specter of tens of thousands of Healthy Michigan enrollees being thrown off the program next year for failing to meet the new work requirements.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has opposed the Republican-controlled Legislature's mandate requiring able-bodied Medicaid recipients ages 18-62 report at least 80 hours a month of work or job-training activities to the state in order to keep their taxpayer-funded health care.

The law provides exemptions for pregnant mothers, adults caring for children under age 6, people with disabilities, caretakers of disabled dependents and individuals with a medical condition that prevents them from working.

During his opening remarks, Gordon said the administration is "trying to stop something really bad from happening."

Gordon later said the department is "working day and night" on educating Medicaid recipients on why and how they will have to go about reporting their efforts to work at least 20 hours per week, find work or get retrained.

State officials have studied lessons learned from Arkansas' roll-out of Medicaid work requirements, which resulted in more than 18,000 low-income adults or 7 percent of the expanded population lost their insurance. At a 7 percent loss rate, that would amount to nearly 48,000 Medicaid recipients in Michigan.

 

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Undercover in a Hospital Bed

 Tim Lahey, M.D. - July 16, 2019   

 

A nurse walked in with a loaded syringe. “Can you lift your gown?” she asked.

The woman on the gurney held the scratchy emergency room blanket closer to her chin. “What’s in the syringe?” she asked.

The nurse frowned. “Don’t you want the medicine your doctor ordered?”

The woman took a deep breath and kept asking questions. She had more than just self-interest on the line.

She was a “secret shopper,” a consultant pretending to be a patient in order to evaluate the quality and culture of care in a hospital.

Some hospitals — including the one where I work — have hired secret shoppers to pose as patients seeking care, using pseudonyms and symptoms of an illness that cannot be diagnosed or ruled out right away. They describe a psychiatric condition, perhaps, or an intermittent heart arrhythmia.

 

Just like any other patient, the secret shopper wears an open-backed hospital gown and a plastic identification bracelet. A nurse inserts an IV and connects telemetry leads. Next comes the usual parade of phlebotomists, doctors, X-ray techs, orderlies and more.

The secret shopper evaluates how compassionately she and other patients are treated. Do nurses wash their hands? Do doctors listen?

A trained sociologist who works with a consulting company called Etch Strategies, the secret shopper complements her observations with dozens of systematic interviews with patients, executives, nurses, doctors and beyond. When her analyses are done, she presents her findings to hospital leadership.

A few years ago, Randy Peterson, then the president and chief executive of Stormont Vail Health, a medical center in Topeka, Kan., hired Etch Strategies. Mr. Peterson, who retired this spring, said he wanted to figure out why his 586-bed hospital had only average patient satisfaction scores despite getting high marks on clinical quality metrics.

The secret shopper found clues. She observed that caregivers were sometimes brusque and even dismissive of patients. They didn’t always interact well with each other, either. More than once, the secret shopper overheard emergency room workers bad-mouthing employees from other areas of the hospital.

 

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Please support the Marriage Access for Persons with Special Abilities Act (H.R. 1529)!

 

 

We need you to take action! Please contact your US Representative and ask them to support the Marriage Access for Persons with Special Abilities Act (H.R. 1529). Click here to send your message! Representatives John Katko (R-NY) and Bill Keating (D-MA) introduced bipartisan legislation that will address the unique challenges facing individuals with ID/DD who want to get married and who can reasonably be expected to remain on SSI for most of their adult life. The Marriage Access for People with Special Abilities (MAPSA) Act clarifies that SSI benefits for an individual with an intellectual or developmental disability (ID/DD) will not be affected by marital status. When determining SSI benefits for an individual with ID/DD, only their income and resources will be reviewed, and will not include those of their spouse.     NDSS supports this legislation because living with an ID/DD is incredibly expensive, and there are few economies of scale that can come about when two individuals with ID/DD wish to join and create one household. Each has unique personal care needs, medical expenses, job supports and other supportive services that allow them to function independently in their communities. As a result, most adults with ID/DD cannot choose to be married without losing the necessities that allow them to function independently. We request all advocates contact their Representatives to cosponsor H.R. 1529.

 

 

 

SAMHSA The Dialogue: Children and Disasters - bulletin from 07/17/2019

Children and Disasters After a disaster, children may be affected in a variety of ways, including their short- and long-term functioning, psychosocial adjustment, health, and their developmental trajectory. Children often have different needs before, during, and after disasters. After Hurricane Katrina, disaster response experts recognized that the unique needs children have had been overlooked in federal and state disaster planning (Save the Children). Children are a vulnerable group that make up 25 percent of the nation, and it is vital to be prepared ahead of a disaster to help limit the risk of children’s separation from their families, and to speed up recovery. This issue of The Dialogue from the SAMHSA Disaster Technical Assistance Center (DTAC) highlights the important process of helping children prepare for and cope with their reactions to disasters. A variety of preparedness and recovery resources are offered to better help parents, caregivers, and disaster behavioral health professionals. Additionally, several programs are discussed that can help inspire your community to help children better prepare for and recover after a disaster. Has your program had success reaching out to children? Do you have suggestions or lessons learned from your experiences? Please email your experiences or recommendations to us at [email protected]. We’ll print selected reader comments in a future issue of The Dialogue. Download the Full Issue [PDF – 1.3 MB]

Issue Highlights Texas Child Specialists Serve Communities Hurricane Harvey swept through the Caribbean and made landfall in Texas in August 2017. Texas’s Hurricane Harvey Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program (CCP), Texans Recovering Together, organized as a team to meet the needs of children and youth. The Dialogue spoke with the Texas CCP to find out more about their work and what they have learned along the way.   Preparedness and Recovery Resources for Children This collection of resources can provide staff in CCPs and other disaster mental health programs with additional guidance and strategies for their outreach efforts to children. Listed are resources from the American Red Cross, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and more.   Colorado Spirit’s Approach to Helping Children Recover After a Disaster The Waldo Canyon Fire moved through Colorado in June of 2012, causing 32,000 residents to evacuate, and affecting children and families. The Colorado Spirit CCP team incorporated a program focused on family preparedness to lessen fear and stress connected to disasters. Read more about the “I’m Not Scared When I’m Prepared” project that they implemented in local schools.   Spotlight on Disaster Behavioral Health Programs for Children These spotlights are on programs of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Save the Children, and the American Red Cross. Learn more about their efforts to help children and their families, and resources they provide.   Recommended Resources Tips for Talking With and Helping Children and Youth Cope After a Disaster or Traumatic Event: A Guide for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers This tip sheet from SAMHSA covers possible reactions that children ranging from infancy to age 19 might have to a disaster or traumatic event; how you can best support and comfort them; and how you can know when it’s time to get outside help. Learn more about how paying attention, allowing children to ask questions, and being a good model of self-care can benefit the children in your life after a disaster. Psychosocial Issues for Children and Adolescents in Disasters This guide from SAMHSA was developed for anyone working with children after a disaster. It walks through common reactions children may display after a traumatic event and steps that can be taken in the process of supporting them. The guide also shares several stories that show children reacting after a disaster. They demonstrate how anxiety, disruptive behavior, and other emotions can display themselves and how you can help. Helping Children Cope This page from Ready.gov informs parents trying to properly care for their children after a disaster. It details several ways you can help make disasters less traumatic and shares a list of frequently asked questions from parents with children of a range of ages. It answers in detail the best ways to approach different emotions and reactions after various disasters. Age-Related Reactions to a Traumatic Event This tip sheet from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network helps parents, schools, and communities develop a better understanding of how children of various ages may react to a traumatic event. Preschool children, school-age children, and adolescents can each be supported in a variety of ways to promote their emotional recovery after a disaster or traumatic event. About The Dialogue The Dialogue, a quarterly technical assistance journal, is an arena for professionals in the disaster behavioral health field to share information, resources, trends, solutions to problems, and accomplishments. Read previous issues of The Dialogue. The views, opinions, and content expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Reference in this email to any specific commercial products, process, service, manufacturer, or company does not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by SAMHSA. SAMHSA is not responsible for the contents of any "off-site" webpage referenced in this email.