Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515-1602
September 7, 2007
Mr. Mike Oxford
501 Southwest Jackson Street, Suite 100
Topeka, KS 66603‑3300
Dear Mr. Oxford,
Thank you for contacting me about support for people with disabilities. I want to thank you for taking the time to contact me, and I apologize for the delay in my response. My office receives literally thousands of pieces of correspondence a week, and my staff and I are making every effort to address each constituent's concern.
Eastern Kansas is lucky to have a very active community working to improve the lives of people with disabilities. The Topeka Independent Living Resource Center and Southeastern Kansas Independent Living in Pittsburg are among the best independent living centers in the nation, and Kansans are at the forefront of the national disability rights. It makes me proud to see Kansans so prominently involved, and I will do my part to help them.
I have supported many broad changes that will help the disability community just as it helps everyone else. For example, I am working hard to keep community pharmacies in business, to establish parity in mental health coverage, and to increase funding for education. These steps will benefit Kansans in general, but I also know that people with disabilities face unique challenges, and I am working to identify good legislation that can help with those challenges. I would like to highlight some of these:
Community Choice Act
I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 16 14 1, the Community Choice Act. This bill is the same as bills introduced in past Congress called MiCASSA (Medicaid Community-based Attendant Support and Services Act). It allows anyone who qualifies for nursing home care under Medicaid to choose to receive the care at home instead. The bill will end the decades-old policy that forced people to choose between getting care they need and staying in their homes.
MiCASSA been introduced in each of the last five Congresses but hasn't made much progress. However, several developments give us reason for hope. Academic studies at the University of California at San Francisco show that the program should cost much less than previously predicted. Demonstration projects on a more limited concept called "money follows the person" are underway in several states, including Kansas. And on July 10, the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions (HELP) Committee held hearings on the need for the bill ‑ the first time that has happened since MiCASSA was first introduced. I know how important it is to be able to stay in your home, and I look forward to the day the Community Choice Act is signed into law.
Funding IDEA
Since 1975, students with disabilities have been promised a free and quality education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). To help states afford this law, IDEA promised to help states pay for the cost of special education. The bill pledged federal funding for 40% of the cost it takes to educate students with disabilities. However, this promise has never been kept, in fact, far from it.
I believe that broken Congressional promises are unacceptable. I hope you'll be pleased to know that I am a co-sponsor of H.R. 821, the EDUCATE Act. The EDUCATE Act ensures that special education will receive the federal funds it was promised over thirty-five years ago. The bill makes IDEA funding mandatory, and spells out the amount the government is required to pay each year. Funding will increase gradually from 19% to the full 40% over the next eight years. By 2016, schools will be receiving the money they are due. This will help 2.8 billion students with disabilities nationwide and over 65,000 in Kansas alone.
Expanding Coverage of Complex Wheelchairs
Representative Jim Langevin of Rhode Island uses a sophisticated wheelchair that is able to climb stairs and curbs, move smoothly across rough surfaces like gravel paths, and raise him up to the height of a standing person so that he can look at them eye to eye. It is a tremendous device, but, as a "Class 111" wheelchair, it is not covered by Medicare. Representative Langevin asked me to co-sponsor a bill to fix this, and I gladly agreed. I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of H.R. 2520.
Addressing Social Security's Disability Backlog
On July 31, the American Association of People with Disabilities released a report showing that Kansas had the worst backlogs in the nation for people applying for disability under Social Security. The funding bills we passed in July contain more money for processing disability claims, but this is not enough. On August 2, the four members of the Kansas Congressional Delegation sent a letter to the Social Security Administration asking for an urgent meeting with Commissioner Michael Astrue. I plan to ask him what the Administration is doing to address this and what Congress can do to help. I will follow up with you after the meeting to let you know what is being done to reverse this problem.
Thank you again for contacting. My staff and I will continue to look for ways to help Kansans with disabilities, and I will continue to be in touch with you. Please do not hesitate to contact me if there's anything I can do to help on this or any other issue.
Sincerely,
Nancy Boyda
Member of Congress