ADAPT leaves DC with everything it asked for on Disability Issues

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ADAPT Leaves DC with Everything Asked For

For Immediate Release:
May 6, 2007

For information contact:
Bob Kafka [phone]
Marsha Katz [phone]
http://www.adapt.org

ADAPT Leaves DC with Everything Asked For After Final Day Doing
Literature Drop in Congress

Washington, D.C. - 535. That's the number of offices visited by
the nearly 500 ADAPT activists from across the country who left
information on the Community Choice Act (CCA) of 2007 with every
Senator and every Representative in Congress on Wednesday, May 2.
In addition to the CCA information, ADAPT presented each Senator
and Representative with a ten minute DVD edited from the over 6
hours of testimony at the March

2006 national hearing in Nashville, Tennessee, on the
institutional bias in America's long-term care systems.

While conducting the Congressional literature drop, ADAPT received
more commitments from legislators to co-sponsor the CCA (S 799,
H.R. 1621), and other commitments to push for hearings in both
Houses. By the end of the day, ADAPT had been notified by staff
for Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee,
and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), Chair of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, that both committees would hold hearings on
CCA before the end of the year.

"Needless to say, we are very happy that Sen. Baucus and Rep.
Dingell have committed to hearings on the CCA" said Bob Liston,
ADAPT Montana. "Along with the hearings, we have full support of
CCA from the Democratic National Committee, and the Republican
National Committee has committed to contact all its state
affiliates to address the removal of the Medicaid institutional
bias in their state platforms."

In addition to the successes related to CCA, ADAPT was able to
secure meetings with both the American Hospital Association (AHA),
and HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. ADAPT wants the AHA to endorse
the CCA, and collaborate on a hospital-discharge protocol that
would refer people to community services instead of doctors and
hospitals making automatic nursing home referrals. Jackson, who
came to the ADAPT hotel to meet personally with ADAPT, committed
to meet three times a year, and told the crowd of 400 that, "Fair
Housing is a right! We will do everything in our power to make
sure you have affordable, accessible, integrated housing options
in this country."

Jackson carried the ADAPT message to Congress on May 3, where he
testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee about his
meeting with ADAPT. Jackson has additionally committed to recover
housing vouchers lost to people with disabilities through
misappropriation and budget cuts, and to facilitate a meeting
between ADAPT and Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Chair of the House
Committee on Financial Services, and Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chair
of the Financial Services Committee's Sub-committee on Housing and
Community Opportunity. This Committee and Sub-committee are
responsible for legislation affecting changes to the Section 811
segregated housing program for persons with disabilities.

"Our work this week accomplished even more than we hoped," Said
Bob Kafka, ADAPT National Organizer, "but we still have so far to
go. We are cautiously optimistic and committed to keeping this
week's momentum going, through our next national action in
September in Chicago right up to the 2008 elections, and beyond.
Too many older and disabled people have been virtually imprisoned
in horrific conditions in this country's nursing homes and other
institutions....all for the lack of community services and
affordable, accessible, integrated housing. We will push as hard
as needed, for as long as needed until that situation is
rectified, and Americans have real choice in long-term care
services and supports."

Source: ADAPT, http://www.adapt.org
________________________________________________________________

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