On day one, the new Congress launches an attack on Social Security. The rule hampers an otherwise routine reallocation of Social Security payroll tax income from the old-age program to the disability program. Such a reallocation, in either direction, has taken place 11 times since 1968, according to Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But it’s especially urgent now, because the disability program’s trust fund is expected to run dry as early as next year. (The Los Angeles Times, Jan. 6)
Blog: Getting it wrong on disability insurance. “Social Security is much more than a retirement program. It pays modest but guaranteed benefits when someone with a steady work history dies, retires or becomes severely disabled. A young person starting a career today has a one-third chance of dying or qualifying for DI before reaching Social Security’s full retirement age.” (Off the Charts blog, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Jan. 7. Read more with this issue brief)
CDC stepping up autism monitoring efforts. The CDC is asking researchers to consider the impact of changes to the diagnostic criteria for autism that took effect in 2013 with the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The agency is also taking steps to determine how communities are responding to figures showing an increasing number of children on the spectrum. (Disability Scoop, Jan. 8)
Lots of responsibility for in-home care providers – but no training required. Eileen Carroll, deputy director of the California Department of Social Services, which oversees IHSS, said the program doesn’t have a lot of training requirements because it was set up to give clients the choice of how they want their care delivered. For caregivers who want it, the state offers comprehensive voluntary training information online on topics such as fall prevention and use of medical equipment, she said. Carroll said many people are fully able to direct their own care and supervise their caregivers, but some aren’t. “Our task is how to work harder to support those who have greater need,” she said. (Kaiser Health News, Jan. 6; with audio recording of interview and image slideshow of consumers and their family caregivers)
Language in proposed Virginia budget worries workers, patients. McAuliffe’s proposed budget forbids workers paid through some Medicaid waivers from working for more than one family, according to a number of industry workers, parents of disabled children and Jamie Liban, executive director for The Arc of Virginia, an advocacy group. It also includes an overtime cap for workers paid through some waivers. That language is unclear, but when paired with U.S. Department of Labor rules it seems to forbid some workers working more than 56 hours a week at any wage. (The Daily Press, Jan. 7)
Disabled-care workers would feel Md. State budget pinch. The reduction is part of a plan to cover a $410 million budget shortfall. It would cut in half a 4 percent increase in funds for developmental disability community services for this fiscal year that the Maryland General Assembly passed last year. (The Herald Mail, Jan. 9)
Improving Medicaid for ‘medically complex’ kids. A new bill in Congress – the Advancing Care for Exceptional Kids Act – would amend the 50-year-old Medicaid law to make it easier for health care providers in different states to coordinate the complicated care of these very sick kids. (Stateline, Jan. 8)
Report: People with disabilities paid a third less. Workers with disabilities earn 37 percent less than their typically-developing peers, on average, even in cases where they have similar levels of education, a new analysis by the American Institutes for Research finds (Disability Scoop, Jan 6)
People with disabilities fight for voice at polls. The Rochester-based Center for Disability Rights received a two-year, $88,629 state grant to form the New York Disability Vote Network. The goal is to sign up at least 5,000 people who will receive occasional updates with nonpartisan information on voting and what’s happening in government. (Democrat & Chronicle, Jan. 6)
Opinion: Mental disability, not a crime. “When services are not readily available in the community, behavioral health crises are often treated as a crime. It is counterproductive, costly and inhumane to punish people for their disabilities instead of getting them help.” (The Virginian-Pilot, Jan. 2)
Opinion: Police violence sparks disability rights movement. “[B]oth tragedies reveal the systemic problems with police procedure that intersect with generations of structural racism, confusions about disability, and a society that seems too unwilling to hold police officers accountable for deaths-in-custody.” (Al Jazeera America, Dec. 22)