What are 2009 advocates who won the 'battle' for the CLASS Act doing in 2017 to restore it?

Submitted for reader discussion, hopefully approval, a paraphrase of the Mother Jones quote

"Mourn for the dead and fight like hell for the living"

 used on the following flyer to publicize

 #Ddomxxxx vigils erasing the intersection between better services and fewer crimes that ASAN, Not Dead Yet, DREDF and NCIL since March 30, 2012 and March 1 each year since:


Mourn for the dead and fight like hell for the living….
to end the Medicaid institutional bias by expanding the promise of the 1999 #scotus case Olmstead v. LC and EW, 

to keep all people with disabilities living lives with dignity to eliminate the choice of death with dignity and the crime of murder (filicide).

Add the name of one plaintiff EW Elaine Wilson who died in 2004,
after too short of a life in a community of her own choosing, to the list to read at vigils.

Reenact the CLASS Act/Community Choice Act/MiCassa NOW.

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the July 31, 2011 Budget Control Act (sequester bill) that created a hostile fiscal climate to the CLASS Act that was repealed between October 2011 and December 2012 as part of 'fiscal cliff' FY2013 budget bad deal.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 following mass email was sent in support of the CLASS Act then still titled the Community Choice Act:


Is Sen. Tom Harkin's successor, Sen. Joni Ernst, listening to the activism of the disability rights movement for inclusion with financial aid to pay the costs of inclusion that individuals with disabilities cannot pay?  

Is Sen. Pat Toomey, Sen. Arlen Specter's successor, listening to the activism of the disability rights movement for inclusion with financial aid to pay the costs of inclusion that individuals with disabilities cannot pay?  

Is Congressmember Danny Davis, who is still an incumbent, continuing to work on the issue of providing financial aid to pay the costs of community inclusion, when individuals with disabilities cannot pay them, for all people with disabilities?

What are the disability rights activists who organized this rally and are mentioned, by name, in the following mass email about the 2009 rally for the Community Choice Act, doing now to continue the fight for the CCA that was passed, and repealed, under the new name CLASS Act?


from: ADA Watch/NCDR 
Date: Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Subject: Community Choice Act National Kick-Off Draws Thousands



Just minutes ago in Washington, DC, ADAPT's National Kickoff for the Community Choice Act concluded 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 111th Congress. The event was an upbeat event at times filled with thunderous applause and the chanting of "Pass CCA Now!"

[ Editor's Note: You can start or join a discussion about this event by adding your comments at the bottom of this page: http://adawatch.org/?p=331 ]
  
[http://adawatch.org/?p=331 no longer loads its content in 2017.]

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.

Senator 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



National Coalition for Disability Rights
1701 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 300
Washington, District of Columbia 20006