Aware News

FALL 2003
Services for Independent Living, Inc.

[Headline] MARCH for MiCASSA

[By-line] Guy M. Fisher, Advocacy Program Consultant

On September 17, 2003, hundreds of people with disabilities and their families, friends and supporters rallied at the United States Capitol and called on Congress to pass the Medicaid Community-Based Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA).

MiCASSA is a federal bill that would make it easier for people with disabilities to get long-term care services in their homes and communities. If it becomes law, each state would have to phase in a consumer-oriented system of attendant services and supports to be provided in the home, at school or at work. Medicaid beneficiaries eligible for nursing home care could choose instead to use their Medicaid long-term care dollars for these new services in their own homes.

The MiCASSA rally was the final step of a journey that began two weeks earlier at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA., when 200 protestors — many of them using wheelchairs left the nation's symbol of freedom on a grueling, 144-mile march to Washington, D C. The "Free Our People" march, sponsored by ADAPT, traveled up to 16 miles a day through pouring rain, scorching heat and all kinds of mechanical breakdowns. The marchers slept in tents and on cots and "dined" on a steady diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

"By enduring the obvious discomforts and inconveniences of the march," said ADAPT leaders, the marchers demonstrated their "Undying commitment to all persons, young and old, having the choice AND opportunity to live in the community with the supports and services they need."

At several stops, the marchers were greeted by community leaders expressing support for
MiCASSA. In Delaware, a state legislator promised to introduce a similar bill in the Delaware General Assembly and U.S. Senator. Joe Biden cheered on the protestors.

"This march should show those that oppose us in Congress that you not only have the right to do this march," said Biden, "but the capacity and the gumption to take care of yourselves."

By the time they reached Washington, the marchers had been joined by another 300 supporters. They had also received pledges from President George W. Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to meet with ADAPT to discuss MiCASSA.

Many prominent advocates and members of Congress addressed the rally on Capitol Hill. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, an onginal sponsor of MiCASSA, declared that "it is long past time that people could be in their own homes, not somebody else's nursing home."

This is the fourth time that MiCASSA has been considered by Congress and it has never been more important for advocates to get it passed. Less than one third of Medicaid's long-term care spending goes to community-based services and Medicaid continues to treat nursing home coverage as an entitlement while allowing states to provide community-based services as an option. With so many states in fiscal trouble, these optional services are at risk.

"States are not allowed to cut federally mandated services, like nursing homes," ADAPT organizer Bob Liston told the Hartford Advocate. "The first on the chopping blocks are the so-called 'optional' services like 'home and community-based' programs."

The Free Our People march has created momentum for MiCASSA. The marchers received national media attention and 14 members of Congress have added their support as co-sponsors since the march began on September 3rd. Three of those co-sponsors are Democratic presidential candidates: North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt and Cleveland-area Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Keep the momentum for MiCASSA going! Contact your congressional representatives and ask them to support MiCASS (S. 971 in the Senate and H.R. 2032 in the House of Representatives) so that people with disabilities can get the long-term care they need while remaining in their homes and communities. You can call your representatives through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and you can find the mail and e-mail addresses at the Congress.org website: hhtp://www.congress.org/

Don't forget to follow the progress of MiCASSA and other disability-realted legislation by subscribing to the North Coast disAbility News Source, SIL's weekly e-mail digest of online news articles relevant to disability issues. If you have access to a computer with an internet connection you can subsrcibe to the News Source by sending a blank e-mail message to SIL-News-subscribe@YahooGroups.com or by visiting the News Source home page at: http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/sil-news/

Created on

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Posted on

Friday 27 November 2020

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• Free Our People March, 144 miles Philadelphia to DC, September 2003

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