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Heim / Album / Stikkord Mike Auberger
+ protests + Medicaid 2
ADAPT (801)
The Washington Post, Metro Section 5/6/93 [Headline] The Disabled Plan to Show Washington They're Enabled—and Entitled By Liz Spayd, Washington Post Staff Writer Michael Auberger has shackled his wheelchair to city buses in Dallas. He has barricaded hotel entrances in San Francisco, and he has thrown himself in front of federal buildings, government officials, even oncoming traffic, all to draw attention to the rights of the disabled. This weekend, Auberger and hundreds of other activists from across the country plan to converge on Washington for a three-day blitz of demonstrations and marches in what promises to be the largest protest in history for people with disabilities. “We've written the letters, made the phone calls, had the meetings, and the bottom line is we're still being treated like second-class citizens." said Auberger, co-founder of ADAPT, an activist group that is spearheading the activities. “lf those channels don't work, you take to the streets." Organizers say the immediate purpose of the demonstrations is to demand that the federal government commit more money to helping disabled people live at home, instead of in institutions. At the same time, they want to continue the larger campaign for equal rights that produced the Americans With Disabilities Act, landmark legislation that went into effect last year. A march to the White House and a memorial service for Wade Blank, who was a leader in the movement, are expected to draw the largest crowds, both on Sunday. What may draw the most attention, however, are demonstrations on Monday and Tuesday, when protesters are expected to disrupt Washington with human blockades of buildings and streets. The exact places and times for those actions aren't being disclosed, but the targets could include public buildings, such as the Capitol and the White House, and some federal agencies. “We like to preserve the element of surprise," Auberger said. ADAPT — an acronym for American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today — has been staging protests every six months for more than a decade to fight what it says is the inhumane treatment of the disabled at nursing homes and other institutions. The group said it hopes to redirect 25 percent of the $23 billion in Medicaid funds currently budgeted for nursing homes into programs that would enable those with disabilities to have attendants in their homes. Currently, each state sets policy for how much Medicaid money will go toward attendant care programs, but there is no national policy. [Subheading] Disabled Activists Plan 3-Day Protest The strike on Washington is timed to pressure the Clinton administration into focusing on people with disabilities as part of its package of health care revisions, due out soon, activists said. "Clinton has talked about change and says he wants people to be able to live at home, but what we're looking for is more than just words," said Bob Kafka, an ADAPT organizer in Texas who plans to bring a caravan of about 50 people to Washington. In the past, ADAPT activists have drawn attention to their cause by employing sometimes sensational tactics. They have done belly crawls across hotel lobbies in San Francisco, clawing at passersby. They have taken sledgehammers to street curbs in Denver to protest sidewalks that were inaccessible to wheelchair users. And they have swarmed and blockaded buildings in virtually every major U.S. city; a demonstration in Chicago last spring forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 American Medical Association workers and created disruptions in a half-dozen other downtown facilities. Though such events have attracted media attention, some individuals and `groups` sympathetic to ADAPT’s cause question how effective they are in achieving the larger goal of attaining more money for in-home care. “We're sympathetic to their concerns, but we think the tactics they use bring attention to ADAPT and not the problem," said Claudia Askew, a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, which represents 11,000 nursing homes and is a frequent target of ADAPT protests. Disabled people also are somewhat splintered over whether ADAPT's approach helps or hurts their cause. “There are people with disabilities that think ADAPT is a little extreme," said Patrick McCurdy, vice president of Marylanders for Adequate Attendant Care, a group that generally relies on peaceful protests and negotiations to lobby for in-home care. McCurdy did defend ADAPT's technique as a necessary part of an overall approach to force change in a society that he said has long ignored the rights of disabled people. Few spoke up for those rights until recently, but the Americans With Disabilities Act provided new protections to disabled people and helped forge a civil rights movement among the 43 million people with physical or mental impairments. “A great byproduct of the [disabilities act] is the new sense of confidence and empowerment it has instilled within the disability community," said Justin Dart, chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, a small federal agency. “It's generated an enormous infusion of dignity and pride." Gregory Dougan, a District resident, said the renewed sense of hope is one reason he will take part in Sunday's march. Dougan, who was born with cerebral palsy and uses crutches, said he is fortunate to be able to live at home. But several of his friends live in institutions because they can't get the in-home care they need. And on Sunday, Dougan said, he will be thinking of them. "I'll be tired at the end of the day," he said, "but my crutches and me are going to that march."
ADAPT (713)
The Guardian, May 27,1992 Photo by Tom Olin: A disabled man dressed all in white (Tim Craven) lies on his back to crawl under a police barricade. Beside him a woman (Barbara Bounds) in a wheelchair leans toward him as if to support and protect him. She is facing the barricade and has a sign taped to the back of her chair that says "People Before Profits." Two police men lean over the barricade toward Tim and another sticks his arm in between them. Behind them are even more officers. On the near side of the barricade yet another officer stands, bending almost all the way forward toward Tim on the ground. Caption reads: Protesters in Chicago got our of their wheelchairs and lay down in front of the barricades, forcing employees to walk over them. Disabled militants bring hope to health reform By Mary Johnson Chicago-Hundreds of members and supporters of ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today) took to the streets here May 10-13 to continue their fight for in-home attendant services and to move the national health-Cate debate into the rights arena. The group is aiming to force the American Medical Association—whose headquarters are here—and the American Health Care Association, the nursing home lobby, to replace “home care" with "attendant services“ which consumers control “in the location and manner of our choice,“ says ADAPT. ADAPT, which under the name American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation won the national fight for wheelchair lifts on buses, intend their street protests as the “flashpoint," says founder Wade Blank, for national health care reform. There is nothing medical about assistance to bathe, eat or dress, these activists charge. Target: Louis Sullivan Learning that Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan would be speaking at University of Chicago commencements on May 10, the 250-strong ADAPT contingent cancelled a Mother‘s Day march and stormed into the university‘s pavilion, planning to disrupt Sullivan's speech. Police and Secret Service agents promptly ejected them, but the group spent the afternoon handing leaflets to graduates‘ families. Sullivan has been a perennial ADAPT target for his refusal to meet with them to discuss Medicaid policy on nursing homes. The next day, ADAPT surrounded the HHS regional offices in downtown Chicago, managing to get up to 15th-floor offices before being blocked by police. Others in the group cordoned off exits, forcing building employees to climb over them, and at one point succeeded in getting department officials into the street to listen to the group‘s demands. Ten protesters were cited and released. On May 12, ADAPT moved to AMA headquarters, blocking adjacent streets and crawling up to bang on office windows. Police barricaded the doors, but protesters got our of their wheelchairs and piled themselves at barricades, forcing AMA employees to step over them when their offices shut down early. Police moved to arrest four people they believed to be in command. The four included Mike Auberger of Denver and Arthur Campbell of Louisville, Ky., who were released later in the day. Garnering media attention Though ADAPT planned to press state targets only on May 13, the state barricaded its downtown State of Illinois Building on the two days before. Guards locked wheelchair access doors and forced wheelchair users to submit to police escort on elevators. On May 12, Chicago ADAPT member Paulette Patterson sued the state over discriminatory denial of access. Though District judge Milton Shadur failed to grant a requested temporary restraining order, Patterson’s attorney, Matthew Cohen, said he had “no doubt the suit had an effect.” On May 13, ADAPT took over the building while city police squabbled with state police over jurisdiction and mostly kept their hands off protesters. Longtime Chicago activists noted ADAPT‘s success in garnering media attention. Chicago Lawyers Guild member Ora Schub said ADAPT‘s protests got more coverage than Gulf war demonstrations in the city — even when antiwar protesters shut down Lake Shore Drive. There seems little question ADAPT has begun to have an impact beyond disability rights. As one of the only groups to take the health reform issue into the streets, ADAPT, says Blank, sees its role “as focusing the debate on a bigger political issue” within health-care reform: services as a legal right. “What the disability rights movement can do is humanize society,” he says. Tennessee ADAPT recently forced the hospital power structure there to accept a state financing fee that will fully fund Medicaid (see sidebar). Lawyer Gordon Bonnyman, who was involved in the Tennessee campaign, remembers a “poverty advocate friend" sending him a clipping about an ADAPT protest in Orlando, Fla., in 1990, when the group first took on the American Health Care Association over the attendant services issue. He and his friend “were despairing about health reform," he said, “asking ourselves when the people who were really affected were going to begin to influence the discussion. "l said, ‘l just don‘t see that ever happening until people are willing to stage some direct actions,‘ " Bonnyman recalls. “Then she sent me that clipping from ADAPT's Orlando action and she said, ‘Here are the folks who could do that.'" “My response at that time was, ‘That’s nice, but how many people is that?‘ I now think: ‘Enough.' ADAPT really does have the ability to have an impact nationally on health care issues-far beyond their own issue of personal attendant services." The group plans similar actions in San Francisco this fall. Second, sidebar, article inserted on this page: Saving Medicaid in Tenn Six people in wheelchairs moved swiftly a cross across the drive-way of the Tennessee Health Care Association in Nashville on March 31. Chaining themselves together, the small band waited for members of the Tennessee Hospital Association to come out of their meeting. It was a classic ADAPT action. This time ADAPT was leading a coalition of health care reformers that would force the state‘s powerful hospital lobby to drop its opposition to a state licensing fee intended to prevent a $1.1 billion loss in federal Medicaid funds. Tennessee pioneered the concept of leveraging matching federal Medicaid funds by levying a state financing fee against hospitals that took Medicaid patients. With its 70-30 match, the state took the $300 million collected from participating hospitals to obtain another $700 million in federal matching funds. With that tactic, Tennessee was fully funding its Medicaid program and feeling no financial crisis. By 1991 it was in use in 37 states, with many reporting similar success. The federal government, alarmed at having to pay out increased Medicaid funds to stares that used this method, devised a plan to derail it. A little-publicized 1991 law made such licensing fees illegal unless levied against all hospitals equally. It counted on opposition from hospitals that took no Medicaid patients (and therefore had no reason to agree to the fees) to fight state passage of licensing fee bills. That opposition was swift in coming in Tennessee. The state is home to Hospital Corporation of America and HealthTrust, two of the nation's largest hospital chains, and numerous other hospitals. The Tennessee Hospital Association, of which Hospital Corporation of America is a powerful member, opposed the fee. A state bill to extend the fee to all hospitals was virtually dead, said Tony Garr, head of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, until ADAPT of Tennessee, led by organizer Diane Coleman, got involved. “The only way we could bring attention to the issue was to hit the streets,” said Garr. “ADAPT played a very important role" in helping other groups in the Tennessee Health Care Campaign “move to direct action,” said Gordon Bonnyman, a lawyer who has worked with Medicaid issues in Tennessee. Beginning in January, Coleman and Tennessee ADAPT members staged weekly actions, targeting the large hospitals as villains who were destroying the state’s Medicaid program. The first week a group of nearly 200 people, headed by ADAPT, marched to the Hospital Association's offices. The next week the group staged a protest in front of Baptist Hospital, which opposed the fee. The group hung a sign asking “Are you Christian?" on the hospital administrator's portrait. The group‘s fifth action targeted Thomas Frist, who heads Hospital Corporation of America. “We had a small casket, with dollar bills draped over it, and a sign that read, “Thomas Frist, how many must die for your $1.235 million in annual cash compensation?” said Coleman. The protests had the desired effect. Frist, reportedly upset by the negative publicity, capitulated the day the group surged on Health Care Association headquarters with the cross and withdrew his corp0ration’s opposition to the fee—reportedly urging legislators to vote swiftly to pass the law to avoid more unfavorable publicity. “There have been Medicaid cuts for the last 15 years in this country, and they have gone mostly unreported," said Bonnyman. “ADAPT galvanized people. Without them, the whole thing would have gone down the toilet." M.J.