A D A P T  Home

Free Our People March

Good morning HHS!

The US Department of Health and Human Services arrives to find ADAPT surrounding their office.

(Washington DC, March 22, 2004) On the streets at 6 am, ADAPT surprised the Department of Health and Human Services this morning with a dawn action and guaranteed regular meetings between ADAPT and the HHS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Activists surrounded the HHS office in downtown Washington DC before the staff arrived at work, demanding that Secretary Tommy Thompson and CMS Administrator Mark McClellan renew the department’s obligation to end the institutional bias in Medicaid long term care. 

Thousands of people with disabilities and older Americans are being forced into institutions and nursing homes. ADAPT was on the streets at sunrise to give a wake-up call to HHS that the bias system must change. ADAPT demanded: Support for MiCASSA and Money Follow the Individual, develop incentives and encourage states to implement Money Follow the Individuals, develop rules to make consumer direction part of all home and community services, create public input process for waivers, and meet with ADAPT. 

“I would like to tell Tommy Thompson that denying people with disabilities the right to live where they choose,” said Bobby Coward of Capitol Area ADAPT, “rolls back the rights of all Americans that have struggled for civil rights and full inclusion.”

ADAPT assembled at dawn in the extremely cold and windy alcove between the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Holiday Inn at 6am. Arriving at the HHS office at 7:00, ADAPT not only blocked the pedestrian entrances to the building, but the below street parking. 

Within ten minutes ADAPT activists had blocked doors and began to spread out foam pads and sleeping bags on the pavement in front of the doors and driveways. The arriving HHS staff was surprised to find no parking and only limited access to the building through an underground tunnel connecting HHS to the building on the next block.

Activists stretched out in their sleeping bags sent the clear message to the bureaucrats that ADAPT would not accept business as usual. The last time ADAPT was at HHS, negotiations did not begin moving until ADAPT blocked the parking garage at quitting time. Today it was clear the ADAPT meant business from the start and there was no need to “bump things up,” to keep negotiations moving.

“Your demonstration is cool,” said the guard at the Southwest corner of HHS who asked not to be identified, “it is just too cold. I wish you all the best.” 

All the activists were pleased with the mobile coffee service reportedly set up by ADAPT members with the help of the Holiday Inn. Six coffee urns were wheeled around on a service cart to keep people warm. ADAPT members enjoyed breakfast delivered to the groups spread around the building while negotiations took place with arriving HHS staff.
Secretary Thompson was out of town so the Acting Director of CMS, Dennis Smith announced the preliminary results of negotiations to ADAPT activists. He read a letter committing Mark McClellan of CMS to meet regularly with ADAPT and that ADAPT representatives would meet today concerning the rest of the demands.

“I think they were most surprised about our demand for more public comment on state waivers,” said Jamie Wolf of Delaware about the meeting, “and that we demand to know what city and what facility people are in that want out of a nursing home.”

ADAPT DEMANDS

HHS SECRETARY TOMMY THOMPSON AND CMS ADMINISTRATOR MARK McCLELLAN

March 22, 2004

The momentum to reverse the institutional bias in the long term care system by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has GROUND to a halt. Thousands of people with disabilities and older Americans are STILL unnecessarily being forced into nursing homes and other institutions because of the inaction of HHS.

To restart the process and bring about services and supports in the most integrated setting, ADAPT wants Secretary Tommy Thompson and CMS Administrator Mark McClellan to do the following:

1. Publicly support the passage of the Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA) and the Money Follow the Individual legislation. 
   
2. Develop rules, regulations and procedures that will be an incentive for states to implement a money follow the person process. 
   
3. Send a Dear State Medicaid Director letter to assure states they can implement a money follows the person strategy now, without legislation, and encourage them to utilize that approach to move people out of institutional settings now.
   
4. Develop rules, regulations and procedures that will make consumer direction part of all home and community service programs including Home Health. 
   
5. Make the process of accessing MDS data by the states easier (specifically question Q1a information ), AS WELL AS a process that involves community organizations and supports people living in the most integrated setting. 
   
6. Develop and implement a demonstration project that allows Medicare Home Health funds to be used to provide less medical personal attendant services that ALLOW a person to live in the most integrated setting. 
   
7. Develop rules, regulations and procedures for a public input process for all waivers including 1115 that assures statewide, public hearings before submittal and approval of waivers that effect the Medicaid long term service and support system. 
   
8. Direct AND SUPPORT HHS OCR to actively pursue and resolve state and individual violations of the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision. 
   
9. Meet with ADAPT members assembled on the plaza to discuss ways to implement the above issues and establish an ongoing meetings timetable to assure accountability.