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

Senator Seeks Federal Probe Of Group Homes

Excerpt from: Disability Scoop (click for full article)

 

A U.S. senator is calling for a federal investigation into abuse and deaths of individuals with developmental disabilities at group homes nationwide.

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general this week, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., asked for “an immediate investigation into the alarming number of deaths and cases of abuse of developmentally disabled individuals in group homes.”

Specifically, Murphy urged Inspector General Daniel Levinson to focus on the “prevalence of preventable deaths at privately run group homes across this nation,” citing increased privatization of residential services for those with disabilities in recent years.

Many services currently provided by privately-run facilities are paid for by federal dollars through Medicaid, Murphy said.

The senator’s request comes in response to a recent series of articles in the Hartford Courant detailing cases of abuse and neglect of those with developmental disabilities at various residential facilities in Connecticut. The newspaper found that there were 76 deaths of those with developmental disabilities between 2004 and 2010 where officials cited abuse, neglect or medical errors.

Most of those who died lived in privately-run facilities, the newspaper reported.

Senate will likely confirm Tavenner, Baucus says

Excerpt from: McKnight's (click for full article)

 

The Senate Finance Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Marilyn Tavenner, the White House's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The committee's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), told the Bureau of National Affairs the hearing would take place “soon.”

Tavenner has been acting CMS administrator since Donald Berwick's departure in December 2011. Her appointment expired at the end of the 112^th Congress on Jan. 3. President Barack Obama renominated her to head the agency on Feb. 7.

Senate could add Medicaid expansion to budget plan

Excerpt from: The Virgina Gazette (click for full article)

 

Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel told a Senate panel Wednesday that the state's Medicaid program needed major reforms in order to expand under the federal Affordable Care Act, but the benefits of expansion are hard to pass up.

Hazel spoke to the Senate Finance Committee a day before the full Senate is set to vote on its budget plan.

Senate Democrats have said the absence of Medicaid expansion is a "fatal flaw" in the spending plan that may cause them to hold up the budget for a second year in a row.

Medicaid expansion has skeptics in biz groups

Excerpt from: Crain's Business Detroit (click for full article)

 

While small-business groups in Michigan support Gov. Rick Snyder's budget proposal to expand Medicaid to at least 500,000 uninsured people in 2014, two of the state's largest business associations -- the Detroit Regional Chamber and Business Leaders for Michigan -- haven't taken a position.

If the state Legislature approves, Michigan could receive $2 billion in federal funds over the next 10 years to finance the newly Medicaid-eligible. From 2014 to 2016, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs, a number that will drop slowly to 90 percent by 2022.

But Republican leaders in the Michigan House and Senate have expressed skepticism about the long-term costs to the state of expanding Medicaid. About 1.9 million people, or 20 percent of the state's population, already receive health insurance from Medicaid, which now costs the state $12.75 billion of its $51 billion fiscal 2013-14 budget.

Tom Harkin of Iowa Won’t Seek Re-election to Senate

Excerpt from: The New York Times (click for full article)

 

Senator Tom Harkin, the Democrat from Iowa who championed landmark legislation banning discrimination against people with disabilities, said Saturday that he would retire and not seek re-election next year to a sixth term.

The announcement from Mr. Harkin sets the stage for one of the most competitive Senate races in the country in the 2014 midterm elections. It will be a crucial contest in the Republican Party’s quest to win control of the chamber from Democrats.

“It’s not easy to walk away, but life is fleeting,” Mr. Harkin, 73, said in an interview Saturday. “I’ve had the privilege to be here for 40 years. Too many people hang on to power for too long, and that’s not right.”

Our take: Disability disconnect

Excerpt from: Orlando Sentinel (click for full article)

 

Even in a year filled with lowlights in Congress, this one stands out as shameful: the U.S. Senate's rejection this month of an international treaty promoting the rights of people with disabilities.

The treaty, which the administration of former President George W. Bush helped negotiate, makes the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act a model for nations across the globe. It would not change any U.S. law. It has been ratified by 126 other countries.

Yet Republican critics of the treaty claimed it would somehow violate U.S. sovereignty because it would be overseen by the United Nations. Some even told the tall tale that it would give orders to Americans parents who home-school children with disabilities. They dismissed assurances to the contrary from supporters.

Disability treaty, Obamacare in Kansas, military cuts

Excerpt from: The Kansas City Star (click for full article)

 

The vote in the Senate was one of the lowest points in memory (12-5, A1, “Treaty fails, despite push from Dole”). The Senate refused to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was modeled on present U.S. law.

Our government refused to sign what has already been American law for years. The treaty failed ratification by only five votes.

Two of the “nay” votes were, inexplicably and outrageously, cast by the two senators from Kansas, Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts.

Both men walked past Bob Dole, the frail 89-year-old former senator from Kansas who had been wheeled into the Senate well to encourage his Republican colleagues to vote for it.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/12/09/3955215/letters-disability-treaty-obamacare.html#storylink=cpy

Senate vote on UN disability convention shows pitiful state of US politics

Excerpt from: The Telegraph (click for full article)

 

This was the sort of pro-forma vote that would have passed with broad bipartisan support a decade or so ago – a symbolic signing on to a UN treaty that aimed to raise international standards on the treatment of the disabled, not to some dizzying new height but to the level the US achieved more than 20 years ago under President George H W Bush.

America, it was hoped, would add its weight to the push to extend disability rights around the world.

Instead, the vote became a litmus test that pitted Main Street moderate Republicans against right-wing fear-mongers. The fear-mongers won.

In the process, the vote showed just how polarised and dysfunctional the Senate has become.

Bob Dole and the GOP's disability

Excerpt from: Bradenton Herald (click for full article)

 

The treaty merely seeks to require countries to recognize the rights of the disabled, as the United States already does. It wouldn't change U.S. law. It would, as Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry explained, encourage other nations to develop laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act, which passed 22 years ago, in large part thanks to Dole's efforts.

But that wasn't enough to satisfy what can only be described as the paranoid wing of the Republican Party, with its history of offering visions of black helicopters and storm troopers whenever the subject of the United Nations comes up.

Leading the delusional parade was none other than another failed presidential candidate, former Sen. Rick Santorum, who, as the father of a developmentally disabled child, should know better than to oppose international human rights.

Santorum and other opponents seem to believe the treaty was both too powerful -- they imagine it would somehow cause the U.N. to trump U.S. law -- and not powerful enough, giving signatories like China, Syria and Iran the means to improve their reputations while not actually compelling them to help the disabled.

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/12/09/4309118/bob-dole-and-the-gops-disability.html#storylink=cpy

American Disability Community Denounces Failure to Pass Treaty in U.S. Senate

Excerpt from: USICD (click for more information)

 

 The American disability and veteran community applauds the 61 courageous senators who stood up for the rights of their citizens.  The Democrats and Independents were unified in their support for the treaty.  We sincerely thank those Republicans who stood with us for their courage: Senators McCain, Barrasso, Brown, Collins, Ayotte, Snowe, Murkowski, and Lugar. As for the other 38 senators, who abandoned the very principles and values that this country was built upon by blocking the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - we will not let you forget this vote.  Countless Americans with disabilities came together across the United States to support the cause of U.S. ratification of the CRPD.

 

Not all is lost, however.  The CRPD will continue to serve as the guide star for people with disabilities in countries around the world.  Today, as a result of a grassroots advocacy and education campaign, Americans with disabilities have an increased awareness of this important human rights document and its promise to the world's one billion people with disabilities.  This connection between Americans with disabilities and their global counterparts cannot be severed.