Medicaid Top Priority
Meetings Tap Chord with Disability
Community
by John Tschida
After a whirlwind
tour of Minnesota to educate people with disabilities and their
families on state and federal health care policy changes, leading
disability advocates are excited by the results they achieved. The
August 2006 meetings, one held in each congressional district, also
featured personal stories of the effects of Medicaid and skills training
on how to effectively work with state legislators.
“We reached hundreds of families, particularly in rural Minnesota,” said
Joel Ulland, cochair of the Minnesota Consortium for Citizens with
Disabilities (MN-CCD), the coalition of more than 50 statewide disability
provider and advocacy organizations that sponsored the Medicaid Town
Hall meetings. “People are hungry for this kind of information
and eager to know how they can get involved to preserve these critical
health services.”
The meetings are part
of a broad coalition strategy that is attempting to leverage the
strength of the grass-roots efforts of many disability organizations. “The 2007 legislative session will set the state
budget for the next two years,” said Ulland. “We need
all the help we can get from as many people as possible.”
In all, nine meetings
were held, from Crookston to Marshall in the west to Duluth and
Rochester in the east. The goal, said Jeff Nachbar of the Brain
Injury Association of Minnesota, was “to give
people the tools to ask lawmakers and political candidates where
they stand on the Medicaid program. In that regard, we were tremendously
successful.” Nachbar chairs the MN-CCD grass roots subcommittee.
The meetings included policy overviews of the federal Deficit Reduction
Act, which, in part, granted states a great deal of flexibility to
alter state Medicaid benefits and copay-ment amounts without first
seeking federal approval. While this new flexibility could mean positive
changes for the Medicaid program, it could also result in some negative
changes. For this reason MN-CCD sponsored a law (that was approved
in 2006) that requires the state to first inform a panel of advocates
before making substantial changes to the Medicaid program. Some states
without this kind of requirement have seen major changes to their
Medicaid program occur with no opportunity for public input or advance
notification.
Advocacy training was also a key part of the Town Hall Meetings,
with tips on how to contact state policymakers and how to tell your
personal story in a way that is most effective. Information packets
were available for all attendees, and were made possible by the generous
funding of the state Council on Developmental Disabilities.
Perhaps the most powerful part of the two-hour informational sessions
was the personal stories and testimony given by both people with
disabilities themselves and family members who live daily with people
enrolled in the Medicaid program. These stories and anecdotes painted
vivid pictures of lives well lived because of the benefits provided
by and paid for with publicly funded health insurance.
“Medicaid preserves my family’s health and safety,” Tom
Turan, the father of two sons with disabilities, told a crowd of
more than 50 gathered in Bloomington at the Aug. 2 forum. “It
provides my family with the extra arms and eyes [of home health aides]
to watch the boys. Without it I don’t know where we’d
be.”
MN-CCD is planning another
series of statewide meetings to be held after the November general
election. The target audience will be newly elected lawmakers at
the state, local, and federal level. Please monitor future editions
of Access Press for details on these hearings. Anyone interested
in learning more about MN-CCD can call Christian Knights at 763-520-0725. ![]()
