Please stop Virginia from regressing back to the worst Eugenic State of the Union! Oppose Eliminating Service Facilitators and Oppose Ending DMAS Higher Level Review
1. Service Facilitators are protective government oversight that are not monetarily incentivized (unlike Capitalist for shareholder private insurance companies) and provide person-facing service/expertise representing people with disabilities that cannot be done over the phone with a different random person every month.
It is designed to be nearly inaccessible (by design because these are for profit companies trying to up the shareholder cost share profits) to reach CDCN/PPL on the phone today, much less adding Service Facilitation functions like annual attendant care hour renewal paperwork. Those renewals happen as a natural course of knowing our families, which is not possible through a CDCN/PPL switchboard. I too cannot fathom the phone waits if this is done -- it is simply not tenable. This will destroy care and is destruction.
2. Strongly Oppose ending DMAS higher level review in cases where persons on the CCC+ waiver are later found ineligible. This is protective government oversight (the government has a constitutional obligation to protect vulnerable and disabled citizens and that is one of the reasons we have local, state, and federal taxes- to protect the citizens: NOT give tax dollars to greedy private for profit shareholders corporate profits that take government tax dollars and give below legal minimum to fatten their shareholder profits (none of the private insurance companies nor private equity companies are B-corporations which is the only somewhat ethically not exploitive capitalist business model) so we cannot destroy the government oversight that keeps greedy profit chasers from breaking laws (none oversight =no checks and balances) and cutting hours so whatever broker gets a bonus that month from cutting hours and making more profit for ABC Private Insurance Company.
One person's opinion in a 10-min visit should not singly eliminate services enabling a person with disabilities to function in society and maintain independent living.
Attendant care is a lifeline for families of persons with disabilities, and it should not be removed without careful due diligence. Attendant care is significantly cheaper to taxpayers than institutionalization, which is often the only option when attendant care is eliminated and families cannot make ends meet financially and also provide 24/7 care to their loved ones.
Virginia tax dollars should pay for local Virginia care attendants to give care for Virginia disabled citizens in their Virginia homes or Virginia residential care homes custom to their choice.
Virginia home and community care should be strengthened and expanded, not continually decimated for the profits of mostly out of state based corporate entities planning to push disabled out of more affordable to the taxpayers home and community care into institutions that once home and community care is decimated, these institutions will jack inflate prices to 3-5x the cost of home and community care it destroyed.
Virginia has a horrific history of being amongst the worst eugenics driven states in the history of the United States- and these cuts and destruction of government oversight and home care supports are eugenic- the same forces that once drove disabled folks into institutions to be sterilized, experimented on, and left to die faster to less humane and healthy conditions: these forces are at work NOW. These forces want to steal community support tax dollars and push disabled into lower and more fatal institutional life for profit.
Every oversight cut suggestion
Every destruction of support hours in home and community- that is a eugenic push to exploit disabled into for profit institutions because there will be no other choices left.
If you vote for private insurance companies to take over protective government oversight reviews- you are signing death warrants and giving disabled people’s community access hours support: trading their community supports and transportation time to INSTITUTIONAL PRISON TIME for being disabled and having needs.
Many people can be supported at home far cheaper than in at least 3x cost of hospital or institution: by having care attendant hours I have saved both her private and Medicaid insurance companies thousands by doing her at home oxygen and respiratory therapy exercises at home where she is comfortable and has family who loves her- me doing her care hour is hundreds cheaper than in hospital or institution— one of many examples.
You cannot put soft caps at 56 hours ethically or if you have some semblance of a compassionate heart- many at home caregivers cannot work 24/7 and not crash out- more than 56 hours is regular and affordable vs hospital or institution yet you have greedy people lobbying greedy politicians seeking re-election whispering “blame the parents for fraud , blame the non-profit social worker case managers for inflating hours” when statistically the numbers couldn’t even come close to matching the TRUE FRAUD of Private insurance companies and private equity firms COMMITTING MASSIVE LARGE SCALE FRAUD beyond anything individuals could rack up.
The DOJ once found Virginia so grossly negligent that it demanded it course correct for its systemic discrimination and unnecessary institutionalization of disabled citizens- other states became more humane and grew home and community care- Virginia was greedy and segregating disabled with a Jim Crow zest and neglect. Olmstead is still LAW till the law falls no matter what executive branch declares. Until the Judicial Branch overturns Olmstead- Olmstead HOLDS.
These cuts VIOLATE Olmstead - they devastate disabled people and their families, and they are evil and genocidal because more disabled people die in the institutions these cuts want to lock disabled people into- so these cuts of oversight and care caps are a slow method of disabled genocide because they target disabled people, many of whom are not legally capable of defending themselves- the government should protect rather than imprison them.
Please stop eugenics NOW.