Thursday, April 23, 2009
Disability rights action alert for Louisiana
Lousiana is threatening a second set of cuts affecting solely the disability community in Louisiana. In February Governor Jindal (yes, the same Governor Jindal who wants to turn down federal stimulus funds) cut 35% from the budgets of some of the state's programs for individuals with disabilities. A second round of cuts in the state legislature would raise that figure to 7.5% to 12.5 % in cuts for those same programs, plus all other disability programs facing a new 4 to 7 % cut.
What's important to remember is that everytime a state cuts $1 from services for its population with disabilities, they are also giving up more than that in matching federal funds. For Louisiana, the state loses $4 in federal funds for every $1 in state budget cuts.
How does this make sense???
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About Me
- Disability Mom
- I'm the mom of a child with disabilities. Hannah's first neurologist said she might never develop beyond the level of a 2 month old infant, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. The brain damage was just too severe. Nine years later, she walks, uses a touchscreen computer and I've just been shown she can learn to construct sentences and do simple math with the right piece of technology. Along the way, I discovered I needed to teach myself what Hannah's rights to services really were. Learning about early intervention services led to reading about IDEA and then to EPSDT. I've been waiting for the Obama administration to realize the power and potential of EPSDT for the medical rights - including the right to stay at home with their families - of children with disabilities. The health reform people talk about long term care, and the disability people talk about education and employment, but nobody is talking about EPSDT. So I am.
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