We Did it! Unite for Change for the Next Round!

I am thrilled to report that my Idea for Change to Fully Fund the Medicaid Waiver Program and create portability of waivers has made it to the next round of voting on Change.org.

We placed 16th out of 7,783 ideas - and did it even though we started later than most of the other ideas. You can see here where we are.

But we have a NEXT round of voting to prove that Funding Medicaid Waivers is one of the top 10 Ideas for Change in America. And we need to unite to get the word out to VOTE beginning January 5. Voting will end on January 15 so that is not much time.

Now I am going to ask everyone to start preparing for round 2. Build your circle of contacts so that you can send messages to hundreds of people at a time to vote. We are probably going to need to get at least 2500 votes to place in the top 10 - maybe even more than that. But there are 300,000 families on waiting lists in America so we should be able to do it, right?

Here is what is at stake for us:

On January 16th, Change.org will co-host an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to announce the top 10 rated ideas and our plans for supporting the formation of a national advocacy campaign behind each idea in collaboration with our nonprofit partners. The top 10 ideas will also be presented to President Obama on inauguration day.

Here's what you can do:

Individuals can:
1. Join a NEW internet support group (or more!). Start with:
Parent to Parent - http://www.p2pusa.org/
Yahoo Groups - http://yahoogroups.com - search for the largest groups you can find and join them. Make sure some are disability related but also join some general interest group. Start participating in the group NOW, so that you can feel comfortable sending a message about voting later.
Moms Like Me - http://www.momslikeme.com
2. Do some Google research to locate groups and organizations that will be interested in voting. Find contacts (preference is by name) and prepare to send them a personal email about what is happening.
3. Contact your local newspaper and tell them about waiting lists and our national Change effort. Point them to the site to read the stories from all over the country.
4. Think about your circle of influence - clubs, church, Linked-in, Myspace, Facebook, PTCO, coworkers, networking groups. Do you have email addresses - or can you get them? Write your own letter to the editor and make sure to include how to vote.
5. Friends and family - who do they know? Start asking now!
6. Do you belong to the national organization associated with your child's condition? If not, join now!

Organizations Can:
1. Get prepared to send out mass emails to your membership.
2. Contact all service providers you know.
3. Contact associations.
4. Contact your national organization if you have one.
5. Contact newspapers. Do press releases and letters to the editor.
6. Post the widget for voting on your web site, blogs, Myspace, Facebooks.
7. Find other contacts in other states and reach out to them.
8. Contact the Chamber of Commerce you belong to and ask for their help.

I will be posting sample messages you can send to people once I have all the info from Change.org.

We can do this!

Fueling the Economy with the Help of Elderly and Disabled People

Recently, I published this article on Op-Ed News.


Elderly and disabled people are not typically considered to be the populations that can contribute to turning an economy around. Many people view the provision of services to these populations as one-way charity that simply comes out of the pockets of taxpayers into the pockets of those served with no return to society save for the satisfaction of “doing the right thing.” The reality is that investing in social programs creates new businesses, jobs, and more taxpayers and should be part of the new economic plan for America along with infrastructure projects and green technology.

Today, Medicaid waiver programs that provide home and community-based services to the elderly and disabled are dramatically under-funded on both the federal and state levels. Hundreds of thousands of people who qualify for, and desperately need services are not receiving those services in states across the country. In a capitalist society, it means there are hundreds of thousands of “customers” whose needs are not being met.

The ramifications on families are that caregivers must leave full-time careers to care for family members. Many of those caregivers would be working in careers that would have significant impact in society and they would be paying taxes on their income. Some of these families are forced into poverty and must also receive other public benefits in order to provide for their families. In an economy like the one we have today, even middle income families who are caring for an elderly or disabled family member are vulnerable to foreclosure and job loss affecting the only working person in the home.

The Medicaid program provides institutionalized care to elderly and disabled people. Section 2176 of the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act gives the Health Care Financing Administration the authority to waive certain Federal Medicaid regulations to allow the States to include home and community-based services in their Medicaid coverage. Institutionalized care costs significantly more per person than community-based care, but because of the lack of adequate funding in the Medicaid waiver programs, there is also a lack of service providers who can offer home-based nursing care, job coaching services, host homes, and other services. In a capitalistic society of supply and demand, the demand is there but the supply is not because the providers cannot get paid. Families cannot afford the out-of-pocket expenses for such care and insurance does not cover it.

If the federal government fully-funded the Medicaid waiver program, and re-examined the State match requirements, more service providers would emerge and more family care-givers would be able to return to their careers. Furthermore, individuals who are currently institutionalized could move into less-costly community-based care where they could live fuller lives. People with disabilities would also have new opportunities to also become employed, draw paychecks and obtain their own private insurance coverage.

As America re-thinks the way we do business, it is in all of our best interests to consider the needs of our most vulnerable citizens and to value their needs as part of our solution.