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Tuesday, September 28, 1993 —— THE TENNESSEAN
PHOTO by Rick Musacchio, Staff: Two police officers stand over three protesters in wheelchairs, two of whom are holding hands.
[Caption reads] Tennessee Trooper Amos Claybrooks, left, and Capt. Paul Tackett try to keep protesters from entering a door to the governor’s office.
[Title] Disabled demand to see governor
By REAGAN WALKER, Staff Writer
About 300 members of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT, lined the first floor of the state Capitol yesterday demanding to talk with Gov. Ned McWherter.
The national organization is in town to bring attention to the lack of Medicaid funding for home health care.
The group follows the American Health Care Association, the nation's largest lobbying group for nursing homes, to its annual convention each year to protest a system that group members say unfairly dumps disabled and elderly people into nursing homes.
The healthcare association is meeting this week at Opryland Hotel, and its executive board will meet with members of ADAPT today.
Last week ADAPT asked to meet with McWherter this week. But he was already scheduled to be in Germany, where he met with officials of Mahle GmbH yesterday regarding plans for an expansion of its Morristown plant.
Mahle Inc. is the U.S. arm of Mahle GmbH, one of the world's major suppliers of pistons.
Even knowing the governor was out of the country, the group began crowding into the first floor hallway of the Capitol shortly after noon yesterday demanding Mcwherter talk with them by phone about their concerns.
McWherter did not call, but his staff set up a meeting with the group for Oct. 11.
Diane Coleman, a member of the Tennessee chapter of ADAPT, declared the protest successful about 5 p.m.
“We call upon Governor McWherter to put human rights before state rights, to put people ahead of profits," Coleman said.
The group said McWherter's health-care plan, TennCare, does not address long-term care. The state also does not pick up the Medicaid option to provide some money for those people choosing home health care.
Because Tennessee doesn't provide that Medicaid option, LaTonya Reeves, 29, said she moved from Memphis to Denver. Colorado provides Medicaid
coverage for home health care.
“My choice was to either move or go into a nursing home," Reeves said.
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