Peggy Thomas, class of 2005, chats with the Governor at a Braves game this fall

I told the Governor that sometimes after I attend a meeting at school for one of our students, afterward the teachers will make comments like: “If only the parents knew……”. My question was, when you are sitting around with Kathy Cox, what do you wish that parents and teachers ‘knew’ about your issues? His answer was “If a parent shows up for a meeting, I don’t judge their views. It’s the parents who are not engaged that I worry about.”

Peggy Thomas, Director
Club Z! In-Home Tutoring Services
& Partners Graduate

CMS Moves to Pull Services for People with Mental Illness, Others

We received this email from SPADD on Wednesday:

From: Tiffany Neff
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 10:41 AM
Subject: FW: Members may want to read this.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that in August, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) issued a proposed regulation that would eliminate federal funding through Medicaid for states to provide community-based and school-based rehabilitative services intended to enable individuals with disabilities to improve their mental and physical well-being outside of an institutional setting.

The National Governor's Association (NGA) recently called on CMS to withdraw the proposed regulation, calling it a significant departure from states' authority to provide health-related services to Medicaid beneficiaries. For the report.

Unsure what this meant, we emailed folks at DHR yesterday and received this response yesterday from the Office of DD:

>>> Stephen Hall 10/25/2007 2:53:50 PM >>> This is about the rehab option, not DD. Thanks

And then a response from Chris Gault early this morning:

Attached is the letter that we wrote. Much has already been changed in Georgia as a result of CMS dis allowances in the TRIS program. CMS is supposed to post all the feedback they received during the public comment period, which ended on Oct 12. I tried to check just now to see if they are posted but their site is down. Try www.cms.hhs.gov/eRulemaking later and you might see the comments. The reference to the proposed rule is 2261-P.
Chris

We hope that his information is helpful and would love your comments.

Governor's Response to Sarah Pike

STATE OF GEORGIA
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
ATLANTA 30334-0900

Sonny Perdue
GOVERNOR

October 24, 2007

Dear Ms. Pike:

Thank you for contacting my office to share your thoughts regarding services for Georgians with disabilities. I appreciate your concerns.

I am proud of the support that we have been able to provide for Mental Retardation/ Developmental Disability (MR/DD) services during my administration. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, we provided funding for 925 new MR/DD services. The FY 2007 Appropriation Bill created funding for 1,500 new Medicaid Waiver services, including funding to allow 150 children, adolescents and adults with DD to transition from institutions to community services. Also, the FY 2007 budget included funds to strengthen our MR/DD system's capacity to meet the increasingly complex needs of our consumer population. On an annual basis, the FY 2007 appropriation will total over $19 million in state dollars, the largest increase in MR/DD funding in Georgia's history.

Developing our state's budget involves making difficult decisions as we must weigh and prioritize the many competing and important needs of the people of our state. However, I want to assure you that I will not forget my respect for and commitment to Georgians with disabilities during this budget cycle.

If you have concerns about a specific budget item, I invite you to share your ideas with the members of the General Assembly who represent your district, as the General Assembly has the constitutional duty to annually appropriate the funds necessary to operate all state agencies and departments. Thank you again for sharing your unique perspective.

AADD’s Metro SOAR Special Olympics Swim Team

LOCATION: EMORY UNIVERSITY POOL
Pool Located at Woodruff Physical Education Center
Woodruff PE Center 30322

Parking can be found in the Peavine Parking Deck across from the Woodruff P.E. Center/pool and is free of charge.

2007-08 Season Starts October 23, 2007
Tuesday Evenings 7:30 - 8:30 PM

This program is opened to all levels of swimmers. We have participants that can’t swim at all to swimmers that can swim at a fast competitive level. Also, we have training for Unified Special Olympics where people without disabilities compete on the same team with our Special Olympians against other Unified Special Olympic teams.

We are fortunate to have members of the Emory University Swim Team as out coaches.

We host several “friendly” swim meets each year and swim at the State Special Olympics summer games May.

Swimmers need to be a registered athlete with Special Olympics.

If you need to know if you are registered with Special Olympics or need registration forms contact Dan at the AADD office: (404) 881-9777 Ext. 216

Employment Resources

U.S. Department of Education (DOEd) Highlights Promising Practices for Basic Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies Helping Transition Age Youth.

The U.S. Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) monitored 23 state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies funded under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. These agencies, their stakeholders, and RSA identified promising practices that provide useful samples of programs and services that promote youth with disabilities transitioning from school to employment. One state agency recognized is the Rhode Island Office of Rehabilitation Services which is a partner in the Department of Labors systems change grant entitled Shared Youth Vision Federal Collaborative Partnership. The purpose of the Shared Youth Vision grant is to create state teams that will undertake strategic planning activities to develop a system that will improve services to youths by leveraging resources, aligning policy, and other activities.

Disability Data Resources: Office of Disability Employment Policy Website

SUMMARY: Who are people with disabilities? What do we know about people with disabilities? How many individuals with disabilities use assistive devices? How many people with disabilities are working? What are people with disabilities' demographics? Numerous resources are available to provide statistical data to answer these questions and provide information on other disability related topics. This website compiles a list of other sites which have disability data readily accessible.

Housing News & Events Update:

State Policy in Practice: A Medicaid Primer for Housing Officials
SUMMARY: The most striking characteristic of housing and health care in this country is the disconnection between the two. Access to affordable, accessible housing is critical to the success of the Money Follows the Person Demonstration Program, which will provide opportunities for thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries living in institutions to relocate to the community. Presented in a concise question and answer format, this document explains many of the features of what can be a complicated program.


DisabilityInfo.gov
HUD Awards More Than $18 Million in Grants to Fight Housing Discrimination
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded 88 grants totaling $17.1 million to recipients in 37 states and the District of Columbia to help fight housing discrimination. One of the grant recipients, Access Living of metropolitan Chicago, is part of the Department's national effort to reduce discrimination against persons with disabilities. Access Living will use the grant to conduct fair housing enforcement activities.

Click the titles for more information.

New Online Tool For Side-by-Side Comparisons of Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals

As part of its ongoing effort to inform debate about health care issues in the 2008 presidential election, the Kaiser Family Foundation has released an interactive online tool to compare the health care proposals of presidential candidates. The tool, 2008 Presidential Candidate Health Care Proposals: Side-by-Side Summary is available here. It summarizes positions in four overall categories of access to health care coverage, cost containment, improving the quality of care, and financing.

The online tool allows users to customize side-by-side comparisons by selecting as many as four candidates for comparison that can then be formatted into a printer-friendly format. Users will also be able to print out documents comparing all the Democratic candidates and all the Republican candidates.

The candidates' summaries were prepared by Foundation staff with the assistance of Health Policy Alternatives, Inc. They are based on information appearing on the candidates' websites and supplemented with information from candidate speeches, the campaign debates and news reports. The sources of information are identified for each candidate's summary (with Internet links). Information will be updated regularly as the campaign unfolds.

The new tool is part of health08.org, a website operated by the Foundation providing analysis of health policy issues, regular public opinion surveys, and news and video coverage from the campaign trail. For further information on the side-by-side comparison or other health08.org efforts contact health08web@kff.org.

Have you contacted your Congress person and Senators supporting the Community Choice Act?

Click here for each Senator or Representative's congressional website, where address, phone number, e-mail, and other information can be found.

Sponsors from GA

-Rep Deal, Nathan [GA-9] - 10/9/2007
-Rep Marshall, Jim [GA-8] - 8/2/2007

A COMMUNITY-BASED ALTERNATIVE TO NURSING HOMES AND INSTITUTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Families are in crisis. When support services are needed there are no real choices in the community. Whether a child is born with a disability, an adult has a traumatic injury or a person becomes disabled through the aging process, they overwhelmingly wan t their attendant services provided in their own homes, not nursing homes or other large institutions. People with disabilities and their families will no longer tolerate being forced into selecting institutions. It's time for Real Choice.

The Community Choice Act provides an alternative and will fundamentally change our long term care system and the institutional bias that now exists. Building on the Money Follows the Person concept, the two million Americans currently residing in nursing homes and other institutions would have a choice. In addition, people would not be forced into institutions in order to get out on community services; once they are deemed eligible for the institutional services, people with disabilities and their families will be able to choose where and how they receive services. Instead of making a new entitlement, the Community Choice Act, makes the existing entitlement more flexible.

Find out about current action on the Community Choice Act from THOMAS, the Library of Congress Database.
The Senate Bill is S. 799 and the House Bill is H.R. 1621.

Did you know that 1 out of 5 Americans has a disability?

Many people don't realize that people with disabilities are America's largest minority group. Despite this significant presence, there is a lack of regular public dialogue about how to be inclusive of this major segment of our population. As a result, it is all too common for people with disabilities to be overlooked and underrepresented in community activities and in the workplace.

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Bobby Dodd Institute is providing free online disability awareness training. The Web site provides the answers, tips, and resources to connect businesses to this untapped labor resource and to ultimately make a difference in the underemployment of people with disabilities. The majority of these resources are appropriate for disability awareness in a non-business setting as well.

Please take a few minutes to increase your disability awareness

by visiting www.bobbydodd.org.


Thank you!

Medicaid spending jumps sharply

By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

Medicaid spending has started to soar again, a sharp reversal from last year when costs unexpectedly fell for the first time since the program began in 1965.
The state-federal health care program for the poor experienced a 10.7% jump in costs during the first six months of the year, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Bureau of Economic Analysis data. That's the biggest increase since 2001 and puts Medicaid on pace to spend a record $330 billion in 2007.

Click for the full article.