Fw: (ASAN) Act Now! Public Comments to CMS on What is Community

[Guest guest]

ASAN

Autistic Self Advocacy Movement

" Nothing about us without us "

Act Now! Public Comments to CMS on What is Community

Do you believe that people with disabilities should have the right to make

decisions about our own services? To choose with whom and where we live? To be

able to invite visitors home and make our own decisions about how to spend our

day, decorate our homes and what kinds of services we want and don't want?

Today, you have an opportunity to make these rules law!

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government agency that funds

most disability service provision in the United States, has put forward a

regulation that would set out requirements for how service providers receiving

Home and Community Based Services funding can behave. CMS has proposed a wide

variety of crucial protections, such as protecting people with disabilities from

eviction from our homes due to refusing a particular service or treatment,

requiring that community providers must respect the choice and autonomy of the

people they support and many other important protections that will empower

people with disabilities in interactions with their service providers.

But these regulations are facing severe opposition from many in the provider

industry that believe that people with disabilities are " too disabled " to make

these choices for ourselves. We have till this Monday to make our voices heard,

before the CMS Public Comment period closes for good! Follow these simple

instructions to make sure you're represented:

1) Go to Regulations.gov. Search for CMS-2249-P2.

2) Click on the first result. A direct link can be found here:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=CMS-2008-0035-0058

3) Take a look at the regulation and click Comment Now! to share your thoughts

(NOTE: the regulation text states June 4th as the deadline for comment - it has

since been extended to July 2nd).

4) Take a look at the ASAN public comment for ideas:

http://autisticadvocacy.org/2012/06/asan-public-comment-on-defining-hcbs-in-1915\

i/ Feel free to copy any points that resonate with you. Here are a few points

you may want to consider including:

* CMS should incorporate within the Final Rule a requirement that receipt of any

particular service or support cannot be a condition for living in a unit.

* CMS should require that any modification to the conditions placed upon

provider-controlled or owned residential settings be supported by a specific

assessed need documented in the person's person centered plan and should limit

the acceptable scope of any modifications to the requirements placed on

providers owning or controlling residential settings.

* CMS should shift from a rebuttable presumption of non-compliance with the HCBS

program " for any setting that is located in a building that is also a publicly

or privately operated facility that provides inpatient institutional treatment,

or in a building on the grounds of, or immediately adjacent to, a public

institution, or disability-specific housing complex " to an unequivocal

requirement that said settings are not acceptable under HCBS funding

authorities.

This is a critical opportunity for our community to be heard on a vital civil

rights issue - but time is running out! Please help spread the word and make

sure that you weigh in today to protect our rights. As always, Nothing About Us,

Without Us!

Regards,

Ari Ne'eman

Autistic Self Advocacy Network