Action Report

June 18, 2000

"Other groups who have suffered similar internment have demanded the federal government to make reparations for their suffering," said Barbara Toomer, state organizer for ADAPT Utah. "We want the federal government to change a failed policy and free the two million persons still being forced to live in America's nursing homes and other institutions."

ADAPT, a national grass roots disability rights group, organized the rally which was co-sponsored by 13 other disability groups to kick off a week of protests demanding more and better home and community based services, and an end to forced institutionalization. A first step would be for Congress to pass S. 1935, the Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA). MiCASSA, introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and co-sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), is a bipartisan bill which would allow people to choose to live and receive services in the community, a choice they lack under the current institutionally biased Medicaid policy.

Following the rally, the activists marched two miles in 90 degree weather to the White House where they left hundreds of wooden crosses on the lawn. The crosses represent friends and family still interned inside institution and nursing home walls because they are denied, under a 35 year old Medicaid policy, the right to choose where they will live and receive services. " A few years ago one of those crosses was me," said Margaret Dougherty, 60, of Bethlehem, PA. "I spent 6 years in 2 nursing homes against my will and while there I was overly drugged, left in a pool for over 2 hours, hit, and put to bed without dinner-all on more than one occasion."

National co-sponsors of the rally included ADAPT; American Network of Community Options and Resources; Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Long Term Services and Supports Task Force; Justice for All; National Association of Developmental Disabilities Councils; National Council on Independent Living; National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems; and TASH. State/Local cosponsors were the Kansas Commission on Disability Concerns; the Maryland Disability Forum; the PACER Center, MN; Project Action, DC; and the United Cerebral Palsy of DC and Northern Virginia.