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Action Alert, News

How to Improve Medicaid

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How to Improve Medicaid

Image emphasizes Medicaid people on Medicaid already cannot get enough support and suggestions to improve it.
Ways to improve Medicaid, end waiting lists and staff shortages! Increase civil rights!
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Doodles & text about improving medicaid. Title: How to improve medicaid (for those who “truly need it”).

Image: Man in wheelchair smacking his head. T-shirt reads, “Our homes not nursing homes”. He is saying “we already cannot get enough support to eat, bathe, dress, toilet, transportation, work, shop or be safe.”  Image: Shocked looking man, “You mean disabled folks don’t just get what they need?” A large question mark over his head.

Highlighted groups of texts. Increase funding! End waiting lists! Millions unserved & underserved! This group includes a doodle of a money bag and green arrow pointing up. Increase rates! End staffing shortage crisis! Improve quality! Side image of dollar signs getting larger with an arrow going up.  End institutional bias! Home & community based services (HCBS) must be mandatory! (not optional). Increase rights, protections, opportunities & accessibility!

At the bottom of the cartoon is a row of protest signs and hands. Signs read: Equal access! Disability rights are civil rights! Stop segregation! Implement Olmstead! End disability poverty! Community supports now! Cuts will kill! Real homes not group homes! The words “Talk with the people!” Appears over a cat. Colleen Tomko copyright 2025

When states get fewer dollars they have limited choices.

  1. Reduce Benefits
  2. Reduce Enrollees
  3. Take funds from other budget items
  4. Raise taxes

Medicaid is already underfunded and requires increased funding to meet the needs of people with disabilities and seniors. General cuts (Even when claiming to address specific issues) have historically been shown to reduce critical community services for people with disabilities, because they are optional and the easiest to reduce in state budgets.

For example: From 2010 to 2012, all states reduced HCBS program spending in response to Federal Medicaid cuts. All states reduced spending on Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), either by spending less per person or by reducing the number of beneficiaries receiving HCBS. In many states, waiting lists for HCBS grew substantially, and still exist today!

When states reduce Medicaid’s Home and Community Based Services, people lose essential supports to remain in thier own homes and community. This is in direct conflict with the Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision, which established that unjustified segregation of people with disabilities in institutions is a form of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), creating civil liberties issue. Private insurance companies do not provide for community services or home care. Without Medicaid, everyone becomes susceptable to loss of their civil rights and being forced into institutional care when they have greater needs.

CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS!
(866) 473-5915

Let them know what Medicaid means to you, your families, friends and neighbors! Let them know how they can improve Medicaid!

News

New Discipline Guidance Focuses on Discrimination Against Students With Disabilities

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New U.S. Department of Education discipline guidance clarifies federal protections against discrimination toward students with disabilities.

According to the new U.S. Department of Education guidance, schools must determine if a student’s behavior is related to their disability before disciplining them. U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona stated that the new guidance is the “most comprehensive” the department has ever released on the topic.

Four New Resources

Key takeaways:

Schools are required to provide behavioral supports and services to students with disabilities and must determine if a student’s behavior is related to their disability before expelling or suspending them for that behavior.

Section 504 prohibits schools from not making reasonable modifications for students with disabilities such as adapting school policies to support student needs; unnecessarily treating a student differently because of their disability; or using policies that have an “unjustified discriminatory effect” on students with disabilities.

A student’s IEP, or individualized education program, must include the use of “positive behavioral interventions and supports” to address disruptive behavior.  Behavioral interventions can include “special education and related services, supplementary aids and services, and program modifications or supports for school personnel.”

Behavioral interventions can include “special education and related services, supplementary aids and services, and program modifications or supports for school personnel.”  Physical restraints—when adults use their own physical force to restrain a student—could constitute discrimination. However, the use of “physical escort,” in which an adult temporarily touches or holds a student’s hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, or back “for the purpose of inducing a student who is acting out to walk to a safe location,” is not considered a restraint.

Informal removal, although not defined in IDEA and its implementing regulations, means action taken by school personnel in response to a child’s behavior that excludes the child for part or all of the school day, or even an indefinite period of time. These exclusions are considered informal because the school removes the child with a disability from class or school without invoking IDEA’s disciplinary procedures. Informal removals are subject to IDEA’s requirements to the same extent as disciplinary removals by school personnel using the school’s disciplinary procedures. Informal removals include administratively shortened school days when a child’s school day is reduced by school personnel, outside of the IEP Team and placement process, in response to the child’s behavior.

“Actions that result in denials of access to, and significant changes in, a child’s educational program could all be considered as part of the 10 days of suspension and also could constitute an improper change in placement. These actions could include when a school administrator unilaterally informs a parent that their child with a disability may only remain in school for shortened school days because of behavioral issues or when a child with a disability is not allowed by the teacher to attend an elective course because of behavioral concerns.”