From Anita Cameron:
Disabled Activists Travel to Albany to Protest Proposed Budget Cap on Personal Care
38 activists from the Center for Disability Rights joined over 50 other people with disabilities from around the state, converging on Albany on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, to protest Governor Paterson’s proposed budget caps on personal care for people needing more than 12 hours of care per day.
Upon arrival, we broke up into teams of 10 – 15 people and visited the office of every member of the state legislature. Decked out in bright orange t-shirts and baseball caps that read, “No Matter What You Call it…It’s Still a Cap”, we were very noticeable as we scoured the Legislative Office Building. Armed with fliers and baseball caps, our members spoke to staffers and sometimes, the legislators, themselves, putting a human face on the issue by telling how these caps on personal care will send us into costly institutions. At the end of each visit, the legislator, or their staff were presented with a beautiful pledge sheet that they were asked to sign. It stated that the legislator would pledge to reject the Governor’s budget cuts to personal care. While most expressed support, three legislators – Senator Bonacic, Senator Huntley, and Assembly Member Towns signed the pledge on the spot. The rest will need follow up back home in their districts.
Each office was also left a bright orange baseball cap with our message on it, so that they would not forget why we were there.
After our visits, we gathered for our traditional lunch from McDonald’s, then headed upstairs to the Senate Chambers, where state senators were preparing to enter into a session to address the budget. The time had come for the senators to get a real lesson on how the caps would affect our community!
Activists formed a gauntlet down the hall and the entrance leading to the Senate Chambers. Huge banners mysteriously appeared, made from shower curtains reading, “Personal Care Is a Civil Right”, “Care, NOT Caps”, “Don’t CAP My Freedom”, among others. At the end of the hall was a banner cut to resemble a jail, with the words, “Nursing Facility” at the top. This banner would figure prominently in what happened next.
Loud chanting that reverberated throughout the entire floor greeted senators and their staffers as they entered the chambers. “No Cuts, No Caps!’ we chanted as we handed out fliers and baseball caps. “No Matter What You Call it…It’s Still a Cap!” filled the ears of the senators as they began their session. At times, an announcement would ring out, “Let us show you what we mean”, and people with disabilities would line up before three individuals with placards with the acronym for three different programs that the state is suggesting that they go to once their services are capped. These programs, Long Term Home Health Care Program (LTHHCP, also known as Lombardi), Managed Long Term Care plans (MLTC), and Nursing Home Transition and Diversion waiver (NHTD) have built-in hourly caps or, due to administrative constraints, are inappropriate for those needing more than twelve hours of care per day.
As each advocate went before the person with the placards and asked for service, they were told, “Sorry, you’re capped” or “Denied!” and sent to the next person with a placard until they were directed to the nursing facility “jail” at the end of the line. After several rounds of this theatre, a gentleman in a business suit (he looked like a legislator, but was actually the Executive Director of Action Toward Independence in Middletown) approached the nursing facility “jail”, signed our Pledge, signifying that the legislature had rejected the budget cap on personal care, and freed the captive activists.
Toward the end of the day, after the senators had been in session for some time, the Sergeant-at-Arms came out to ask that we stop the chanting or he would have to have us removed. He said that we could continue to pass out fliers and hats, so we agreed to his request. In an interesting turn of events, word reached us that some of the senators were asking if we had any more of our caps to hand out. It appeared that at least some of them had gotten our message: No Matter What You Call it…It’s Still a Cap!
http://cdrnys.org/wordpress/?p=432
Showing posts with label Governor David Paterson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Governor David Paterson. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
New York State Deals With Governor Paterson
Check out this video on the state budget fight in New York: http://www.cdrnys.org/video/proposedbudgetYNN.html. The video is captioned.
On Monday, February 1st, a group of New York disability rights advocates met with the Governor Paterson and key staff regarding his budget proposal to cap personal care at 12 hours per day.
After delays with security, we started the meeting with quick introductions and a brief context for the meeting. At about that point, the Governor walked in; we did a quick round of re-introductions and got back to business.
Throughout the meeting, the Governor played a calming role as his staff and the advocates argued. He expressed a willingness to admit that their proposal might have negative consequences that they had not intended. The advocates poked holes in the administration's proposal, but the Governor would intervene and say that they had already admitted that the proposal might not be perfect, suggesting the group "move forward"... then his staff would start defending the proposal again.
Michelle, who is directly affected by the cut, explained the effect that this proposal would have on her. She explained that just days before giving birth to her daughter, she got her spinal cord injury and became a quad. She left the hospital to live with her mother who was now taking care of both her and her newborn daughter. She wasn't ever able to get the personal care she needed in Seneca County so she moved into a less accessible apartment in Ontario County where she could finally get services. She pointed out that she now must take a 45-minute drive to take a shower, but that's how important her independence was to her. She emphasized that people who get this level of service really need it, and it clearly wasn't that easy to get. She spoke about how she was finally able to raise her own daughter and be a mom. And she spoke about how she feared that losing the services would mean she would lose her freedom... and her family.
So we asked the administration why they hadn't used the cost-savings proposals that we had developed in November, long before any of these cuts were proposed. Our proposals didn't eliminate community-based services. Instead, they actually promoted the independence of people with disabilities by maximizing community-based approaches and cost-effective consumer-directed services. We acknowledged that our original proposals may have been aggressive, so we had ratcheted them down. Even so, we still projected $30 million to $90 million in savings for the first year, easily covering the saving the administration expected from capping personal care.
In a nutshell, our proposals said that the state could save money by moving people from nursing facilities to the Nursing Facility Transition and Diversion Waiver. The staffers felt that our target of 1,300 people statewide was unrealistically aggressive, but never explained how they felt nearly 5,000 people could be enrolled in NYC alone under their proposal. They also argued that daily savings rate we used was too high, even though our revised version was taken straight from the DOH's TBI Waiver report to CMS.
The staff also complained that our proposal assumed that we would close nursing facility beds, but there isn't the political will to make that happen. We argued that the state, particularly in such difficult fiscal times, shouldn't prioritize the institutions over people. At this point the Governor stepped in and said that they wanted some time to review our proposals. We urged them to eliminate the 12-hour cap in their 21 day amendments.
The pessimistic side is that the staff seemed committed to the cap.
The optimistic side is that they agreed to look more closely at our revised proposal. The Governor has clearly made this something they have to address. They know that they are going to be flambéed every step of the way with the 12-hour cap.
We don't know what will happen, but whatever happens, this is only the start of the process!
To learn more about CDR, see http://www.cdrnys.org/.
On Monday, February 1st, a group of New York disability rights advocates met with the Governor Paterson and key staff regarding his budget proposal to cap personal care at 12 hours per day.
After delays with security, we started the meeting with quick introductions and a brief context for the meeting. At about that point, the Governor walked in; we did a quick round of re-introductions and got back to business.
Throughout the meeting, the Governor played a calming role as his staff and the advocates argued. He expressed a willingness to admit that their proposal might have negative consequences that they had not intended. The advocates poked holes in the administration's proposal, but the Governor would intervene and say that they had already admitted that the proposal might not be perfect, suggesting the group "move forward"... then his staff would start defending the proposal again.
Michelle, who is directly affected by the cut, explained the effect that this proposal would have on her. She explained that just days before giving birth to her daughter, she got her spinal cord injury and became a quad. She left the hospital to live with her mother who was now taking care of both her and her newborn daughter. She wasn't ever able to get the personal care she needed in Seneca County so she moved into a less accessible apartment in Ontario County where she could finally get services. She pointed out that she now must take a 45-minute drive to take a shower, but that's how important her independence was to her. She emphasized that people who get this level of service really need it, and it clearly wasn't that easy to get. She spoke about how she was finally able to raise her own daughter and be a mom. And she spoke about how she feared that losing the services would mean she would lose her freedom... and her family.
So we asked the administration why they hadn't used the cost-savings proposals that we had developed in November, long before any of these cuts were proposed. Our proposals didn't eliminate community-based services. Instead, they actually promoted the independence of people with disabilities by maximizing community-based approaches and cost-effective consumer-directed services. We acknowledged that our original proposals may have been aggressive, so we had ratcheted them down. Even so, we still projected $30 million to $90 million in savings for the first year, easily covering the saving the administration expected from capping personal care.
In a nutshell, our proposals said that the state could save money by moving people from nursing facilities to the Nursing Facility Transition and Diversion Waiver. The staffers felt that our target of 1,300 people statewide was unrealistically aggressive, but never explained how they felt nearly 5,000 people could be enrolled in NYC alone under their proposal. They also argued that daily savings rate we used was too high, even though our revised version was taken straight from the DOH's TBI Waiver report to CMS.
The staff also complained that our proposal assumed that we would close nursing facility beds, but there isn't the political will to make that happen. We argued that the state, particularly in such difficult fiscal times, shouldn't prioritize the institutions over people. At this point the Governor stepped in and said that they wanted some time to review our proposals. We urged them to eliminate the 12-hour cap in their 21 day amendments.
The pessimistic side is that the staff seemed committed to the cap.
The optimistic side is that they agreed to look more closely at our revised proposal. The Governor has clearly made this something they have to address. They know that they are going to be flambéed every step of the way with the 12-hour cap.
We don't know what will happen, but whatever happens, this is only the start of the process!
To learn more about CDR, see http://www.cdrnys.org/.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The Center for Disability Rights Visits Governor Patterson
To see the video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLBLwx5b9DQ&feature=player_embedded. Governor Paterson visited Rochester for an interview on WXXI, CDR was there protesting the NY state budget. Governor Paterson met with Bruce Darling and also agreed to further talks on Monday 02/01/2010.
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