Michigan Disability Resistance

How disabled activists turned the fight for Medicaid into a battle for civil rights

The woman in the wheelchair is resolute. Her voice does not waver; her message does not change. “No cuts to Medicaid!” she shouts. “Save our liberty!” She is a rock, borne away by a police officer who grips the handles of her wheelchair. Behind her, another activist follows, with the same chant, with the same resolution on his face. “Save our liberty,” they say, and it is not a plea. It is a demand. 

This is one moment, but recently there have been many like it, constituting some of the most effective protest imagery in recent memory. The woman in the video is an activist with National ADAPT, a group that has harried Congress with one legislative objective: to defeat every iteration of Obamacare repeal that Republicans propose. So far, they’ve won, but in many ways the war has just begun. ADAPT’s protests aren’t designed just to defeat legislation, but to defeat the ideology that inspires this legislation. And so they ask you to consider other questions. They ask you to think about yourself.

In form and in function, ADAPT’s recent protests resemble the Capitol Crawl in 1990. That protest, accomplished by activists who pulled their bodies up the steps of the U.S. Capitol, helped force the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. ADAPT organized the crawl, and had been participating in such direct actions since the 1970s. Dominick Evans tells me that ADAPT’s confrontational tactics are modelled after those deployed by the civil rights movement. “It’s very effective at getting the message out,” Evans explains. “They can’t ignore it if they’re constantly arresting disabled bodies.”

ADAPT’s protests simultaneously acknowledge and subvert the spectacle that able-bodied people make of disability. “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick,” Susan Sontag wrote in “Illness as Metaphor.” Though Sontag chiefly examined cancer and tuberculosis, society implies a similar bifurcation between individuals who have disabilities and those who do not. Living with an inherited disease, I learned long ago that people who dwell in the kingdom of the well impose their own meanings on the kingdom of the sick.  

PDF...... Some of these recommendations are being implemented in many places. Where they aren't, it's because nursing homes are too cheap to protect the people they like to claim they "care" for.....

http://www.justiceinaging.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/WHY-MANY-NURSING-FACILITIES-ARE-NOT-READY-FOR-EMERGENCY-SITUATIONS.pdf?eId=b57801d5-9367-4939-b269-eeaca1b9543e&eType=EmailBlastContent 

Seven Recommendations to Address Current Law’s Gaps:

1. The federal government should clearly require emergency generators sufficient to maintain safe temperatures. 

2. Federal and/or state governments should require advance coordination among facilities, other healthcare providers, and relevant government agencies.

3. Federal and/or state governments should require contractual arrangements for evacuation procedures.

4. Local communities should maintain relevant information on an ongoing, community-wide basis.

5. Government agencies or provider associations should develop resources to assist in emergency plan development.

6. Federal and/or state governments should require review of emergency plans by knowledgeable agencies or persons.

7. Federal surveyors should assess meaningful sanctions for violations of emergency preparedness requirements.

Families who live near Harbor Oaks Hospital in New Baltimore railed against the facility’s proposed expansion Tuesday, crowding a meeting at city hall and demanding the hospital improve safety before completing a major addition.

“Harbor Oaks as a facility is not functioning properly or staffed properly for the type of patients that they have,” said Krista Armstrong, a New Baltimore resident. “And now they’re going to build a new facility, and who knows if staffing will increase?”

Residents filled last night’s meeting in response to a recent 7 Action News investigation into the hospital that revealed accounts from former staff members who say Harbor Oaks was routinely and sometimes severely understaffed, putting patients and employees at risk.

The WXYZ report also uncovered stacks of police reports since only 2015 showing a pattern of alleged physical and even sexual abuse among patients--abuse that staffers say was made possible by a lack of manpower. In addition, Michigan's Occupational Health and Safety Administration found 76 cases of assaults on staff by patients since 2013.

Harbor Oaks CEO Sari Abromovich was expected to be in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting of the New Baltimore Planning Commission, but canceled at the last minute and asked the commission to postpone her hospital’s request until next month.

“Many do not realize that people battling terminal illness, people with disabilities and others are inadvertently targeted by the legalization of assisted suicide…This bill takes a big step toward protecting me and so many others from a death-too-soon.”

• J. Hanson, terminal brain cancer patient and president of Patients Rights Action Fund

Washington, D.C. – Today Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF), together with a broad-based alliance including Physicians for Compassionate Care, National Council on Independent Living, ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and more, AllianceAgainstAssistedSuicide.org, praised United States Congressmen Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Luis Correa (D-CA), and a group of bipartisan cosponsors for introducing Sense of Congress legislation who reject assisted suicide as public policy.

The resolution details a multitude of reasons why it is a grave mistake to legalize assisted suicide. Ultimately, assisted suicide puts everyone, especially the most vulnerable, at risk for a death-too-soon and undermines the entire purpose of the health care system.

J.J. Hanson, terminal brain cancer patient and president of Patients Rights Action Fund said, “Many do not realize that people battling terminal illness, people with disabilities and others are inadvertently targeted by the legalization of assisted suicide. I am grateful to Congressmen Correa, Vargas, Wenstrup and all of the other cosponsors for introducing a Sense of Congress resolution. This bill brings attention to this important issue and takes a big step toward protecting me and so many others from a death-too-soon.”

The Senate is now considering its latest Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal-and-replace bill, known as Graham-Cassidy, which it hopes to pass by the end of this week. Many elements of the bill resemble earlier proposals: repealing several ACA taxes, terminating the individual and employer responsibility mandates, and converting Medicaid funding to a per capita allotment. What’s new is the provision to end the Medicaid expansion and federal subsidies for health insurance exchanges in 2020 and replace them with a short-term block grant to states that cuts about $200 billion from current spending levels between 2020 and 2026. The block-grant funds expire in 2026, however, so funding might plummet $200 billion more in 2027 if the grant funds are not extended.

We concluded that Graham-Cassidy, if enacted, would lead to an initial uptick in national employment, followed by marked job loss and weakened state economies. Key findings were:

• Total national employment rises by 225,000 in 2018 but then falls, with 345,000 jobs lost by 2026. Job losses could be far deeper in 2027 if the short-term block grant is not extended or is scaled back; S&P Global Ratings has forecasted 587,000 jobs lost by 2027.
• Health care employment drops immediately, declining by 47,000 jobs in 2018, with 267,000 jobs lost by 2026.
• States’ overall economies, as measured by gross state products, erode by $39 billion (in current dollars) in 2026.