Declaration for Independence

A Call to Transform Health and Long Term Services for Seniors and People with Disabilities



What We’re Reading: Feb. 8, 2016

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The Baltimore Sun: Police training expands for encounters with people who have developmental disabilities The 11 recruits will be the first police class in Howard County to take the four-hour training on intellectual and developmental disabilities after it became a requirement for recruits across Maryland. — Tim Prudente (Jan. 17) The Guardian: Poor housing is [...]

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What We’re Reading: Feb. 1, 2016

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Governing Magazine: Can Technology Help Prevent Drug Overdoses? The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) has begun using analytics – basically software algorithms – to sift through sets of data to spot patterns and to devise an early warning system about hotspots in the state where possible overdoses and deaths might occur. Using data in [...]

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What We’re Reading: Jan. 25, 2016

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The Atlantic: By 2050, There Could Be as Many as 25 Million Poor, Elderly Americans A back-of-the-envelope estimate suggests that the number of elderly Americans in poverty will increase substantially in the coming decades. In 2010, 46.6 million Americans were over 65.  Using the OECD’s measure of impoverishment, which takes into account food insecurity and [...]

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What We’re Reading: Jan. 11, 2016

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NPR: Anatomy of Addiction—How Heroin and Opioids Hijack the Brain They trigger the release of dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that causes intense pleasure in parts of the brain that include the limbic system, according to Savage. It links brain areas that control and regulate emotions such as the pleasures of eating, drinking and sex. [...]

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What We’re Reading: Jan. 4, 2016

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The Huffington Post: If Uber Kills Cabs, Cities Must Ensure Accessible Vehicles Live Now there's a figure to back them up: According to a recent report, the number of wheelchair-accessible vehicles for hire in San Francisco fell significantly in the past few years -- all while services like Uber and Lyft were rapidly expanding in [...]

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Welcome 2016: The National Advisory Board in the New Year!

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Posted Jan. 4, 2016 | The year 2015 was full of celebration, dedication and recommitment to the movement for independence. Following the momentous anniversaries of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Older Americans Act, the Social Security Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and IDEA, each of us at the National Advisory Board has been reenergized to make [...]

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Technology and Medicare: Congress Passes, Obama Signs Steve Gleason Act

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Posted Aug. 4, 2015 | On July 30, the president signed the Steve Gleason Act (S. 984) into law, a bill to amend Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide Medicare beneficiaries access to eye tracking accessories for speech generating devices and to remove the rental cap for durable medical equipment under the Medicare Program [...]

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Americans with Disabilities Act Celebrates 25th Anniversary; Survey Sheds Insight on Legislation’s Impact (July 23, 2015)

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Hailed as the Bill of Rights for people with disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 has fulfilled much of its promise since it was signed into law 25 years ago, according to a survey of disabilities leaders released July 23, 2015 in collaboration with the National Council on Disability. But the findings [...]

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