Disability Integration Act of 2017 third try for community inclusion financial aid for #PwDs

   The CLASS Act, passed as part of the ACA and repealed by Republican selective debt outrage in return for raising the Federal debt limit on July 31, 2011, was the successor to MiCassa.  Both the CLASS Act law and the MiCassa bill would have expanded the promise of community inclusion, by paying the costs that individuals with disabilities could not pay, made by the 1999 Supreme Court case Olmstead vs LC and EW.


   Earlier posts on this blog mentioned the CLASS Act as a systemic solution to 'do more good for more people with disabilities more quickly'  with administrative cognizance of individual variation and need for flexibility in implementation. 



  As written here


  The 'tea party'/House freedom caucus/congressional Republican majorities since January 2011 are more complicit in moving #PwDs farther from life with dignity. The members of the House and Senate caucuses and party majorities should be held more accountable for the July 31, 2011 Budget Control Act (sequester bill) that created a hostile fiscal climate to the CLASS Act that was repealed between October 2011 and December 2012 as part of 'fiscal cliff' FY2013 budget bad deal. 



  The Disability Integration Act of 2017 is CLASS Act v. 2.0.  Or v. 3.0 if one counts the demanded (by disability and human rights activism) MiCassa (Medicaid Attended Supports and Services Act) that was never actual law as the CLASS Act was.


 Descriptions of what the Disability Integration Act of 2017 would do were given here and in an interview with ADAPT member Gregg Beratan here which starts about 1 hour and 34 minutes into the video. 


 Rustedaspie, the author of this post, is hopeful the regulations resulting from a passed and signed Disability Integration Act of 2017 will allow more inclusive benefits such as allowing Medicaid to fund LTSS such as supported and customized employment services as well as community-based residential HCBS.   Medicaid benefits for habilitative care as well as residential supports in the community of the beneficiary's choosing, have been limited in the past, to get 'bipartisan' support from Republicans, elected by a voter 'base' of fiscal conservatives and 'Independents' (who often avoid voter registration by party, if their state of residence allows, to de-clutter their email boxes from lists asking for small campaign donations or petition signatures if little else) whose votes are motivated by beliefs like this letter.




  Appealing to views like the above letter is why the leaders of disabled community-led (self-advocacy) activism overlook being repeatedly divided by a severity contest/oppression Olympics/respectability politics taking the form of diverting people with 'less intense' needs to 'building disability community together,' in peer-led online and IRL groups, while people with 'more intense' needs get more of their needs met at less of their own cost in money and time.