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Community Choice Act National Kickoff Draws Thousands

ADAPT’s National Kickoff for the Community Choice Act concluded in Washington, DC with a rally call to “Pass CCA Now!

With thousands of advocates in DC and at more than 120 conference call-in sites across the country, Community Choice Act (CCA) cosponsors Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Arlen Specter and Congressman Danny Davis made crystal clear their commitment to passing the Community Choice Act in the 111^th Congress. The event was an upbeat event at times filled with thunderous applause and the chanting of “Pass CCA Now!”

Sen. Tom Harkin led off this important event on Capitol Hill and declared that CCA will pass in this Congress and be on the President’s desk either as a part of the healthcare reform bill or on its own. He noted that it has been 10 years since the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision which affirmed the Constitutional rights of people with disabilities to live in the least restrictive environment and he told the critics who say CCA will cost too much that by allowing individuals with disabilities to live and work in their own homes and communities rather than institutions, the costs will be offset by new taxpayers. Harkin declared: “We can’t afford not to do this!”

ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights (NCDR) are longtime supporters of CCA, formally known as MiCASSA, the legislation that gives people real choice in long term care options. This legislation ends the institutional bias in the Medicaid program by giving individuals who are eligible for nursing facility services or other institutional “care” equal access to community-based services and supports, like attendant services.

The event was moderated by Kansas ADAPT member, Mike Oxford and the other speakers included Dawn Russell, ADAPT, Andy Imparato, American Association of Persons with Disabilities (AAPD), Marty Ford, Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), John Lancaster, National Council on Independent Living (NCIL), Victor Robinson, Self Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE), and Mitch LaPlante, University of California, San Francisco.

Congressman Danny Davis received huge applause when, after promising to do everything in his power in the House this session, he quoted the lyrics to a Sam Cooke song:

I was born by the river in a little tent
And just like that river I’ve been running ever since
It’s been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will

With a progressive president in the White House, powerful co-sponsors in a more receptive Congress and more than 700 disability organizations signed-on in support of the Community Choice Act, the chant of “Pass CCA Now!” at the conclusion of this rally had an empowered and celebratory tone rather than a pleading one. All of the speakers, however, acknowledged that there is hard work ahead for all as the community works to attract Congressional sponsors to the bill, educate the media and mobilize public support for CCA.

Today, everybody seemed ready to take on that hard work.

For more information about the Community Choice Act, go to www.adapt.org

4 Comments on "Community Choice Act National Kickoff Draws Thousands"

Fran Pizzola on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 8:46 am

To everyone involved in advocating and “legislating” for the passage of CCA:

May God bless you! Many many thanks from Cortland.

I will do all I can to educate and advocate in my neck of the woods!

Yours,
Fran Pizzola
A Consumer of daily PAS.
A Christain
An Advocate
A Teacher
A Daughter
A Sister
A Friend
An Aunt
A Taxpayer
An American!

Debra Exum on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 10:05 am

Yesterday’s phone-in CCA event, gave
me more joy and pride; than anything
I have felt in years. Our hard work for
the rights of People with Disabilities is becoming a reality. We all should have the same dreams!

Truly,
Deborah Exum

Pattty Orr on Wed, 25th Mar 2009 11:35 am

With the passage of CCA and all its’ consequent ramifications, a positive new era for the disability rights movement in America will be realized. Dr. King, Wade Blank. Ed Roberts, Justin Dart along with countless other disability advocates past and present/ young and old will be celebrating…

Aryn Alschuler on Sat, 28th Mar 2009 9:19 pm

If care can be provided in the home, safely, and economically, home is where anyone would prefer to live. Nursing homes have been notorious for providing substandard care.
So there are two issues here; care in the home much as the earliest social workers provided, and a transformation from nursing homes to something better, collective living.
Tear apart nursing homes, remodel them into independent living facilities. Let the disabled and infirm individuals who live in them, co-own and run them.

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