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Highlights are Web links:Disabled civil rights lots of information URL: http://sglalonde.tripod.com/
Political letters and legal documentation in View My Pictures! I have Becker’s Muscular Dystrophy.Myspace Group Disabled Civil RightsNovember 28, 2007All Honorable Presidential Candidates,November 18, 2007The Honorable State Governors and Lieutenant Governors Faxed,November 10, 2007All Members of the 110th US Congress Faxed,October 6, 2007All 100 Honorable Senator Faxed,August 27, 2007Honorable Presidential Candidates, senators and representatives, Governor Charlie Crist, Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen18 District of FL, Senator Bill Nelson, Senator Mel Martinez, Rep. Ron Saunders 120 District of Florida, Larcenia J. Bullard D - FL (39), U.S. House of Rep. FL, 14,16,17,19,20,21,22, 23, 24,faxed.I am writing about an extreme situation affecting people with disabilities in the State of Florida. This denial of basic civil rights has led to individuals such as myself who are contributing members of society to be confined to their beds 18-20 hours per day against their will. I am asking that you as an elected official tell me how you can help to remedy the situation.I am a 42 year old man with an extreme case of muscular dystrophy known as Becker’s Muscular Dystrophy. I volunteer at a local elementary school working with young children. I am a mentor, a friend, and an educator. I live in my community, I shop here and I play here just like you. Yet I am dependent upon others for my care as I only have function from my neck up and can not tend to my functions of daily living. Each day I require assistance to bathe, prepare meals, and to be put into and out of bed. Because of things such as the Olmstead Decision and Presidential Executive Order 13217, I have been given the right to live in the community and receive services, rather than being institutionalized away from my family and the community. Medicaid waivers have helped make this a reality for many individuals like myself. Unfortunately, I fell through the cracks as have many other individuals in my situation.Even though I was placed on the waiver program, was protected by Presidential Executive Order 13217 which entitles me to care in the community, and dollars were set aside for my care, my county subcontracted out these care services to an organization that only did business from 8:00-5:00 daily. This meant that I would be taken out of bed in the morning at 8:00 and put back in bed around 4:00 each evening to face 16 hours in that prison. This is unconscionable. I suffered this unbearable fate for about 8 years and was even forced to pay out of my own pocket if I wanted to get out of bed at all on weekends or on holidays when the agency was closed.Recently I was placed on another program known as CDC+ which is working well for my care and puts more choice and decision with the individual. However I can not remain quiet as so many others still face the awful fate that I endured for 8 years. Even worse Governor Charlie Crist is now cutting the waiver programs so that many people are being forced off or will have reductions in care. I want to know what you will do to stop these cuts, and also to ensure that those who are on the Medicaid Waiver program will have care that goes beyond the 8:00-5:00 Monday-Friday schedule and that no one will be forced against their will to spend 16 hours per day in bed. I eagerly await your reply.
Sincerely,Scott G. LaLonde presidential candidate Barock Obama is the only one to respond to my presidential campaign letter! Click on Barock Obama's letter to enlarge.http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/ada/olmstead
overview.htmAt the very bottom of document the cost differential both methods of care. Community-based med waiver and consumer directed care programs wherever possible are less expensive for the taxpayer and better for the individual involved! Think about let's say you're a disabled individual like myself they'll give me carte blanche to be put into a nursing home or institution no questions asked. But like most other people at the time individuals like myself have to find out that are other option they will not tell you. It other words the disabled population is segregated that is why I started Disabled Civil Rights we have a choice to choose where what to live where ever possible. Which is a violation of someone's civil rights to be told where we have to live did not be given any choices!The commissioners' brief and another, filed by 30 national and seven Georgia organizations, document the cost differential between institutional and community care. For example, the daily cost of care in the mental retardation unit at Georgia Regional Hospital-Atlanta, where the women were confined, was $283 in 1996, compared to the daily cost for community services of $118 to $124. National studies cited in the briefs show a similar pattern. For example, one compared community costs, including housing, of $60,000 per year for a discharged psychiatric patient to $130,000 for institutional care.
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The Supreme Court Olmstead decision in layman’s terms two mentally disabled Individuals named Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson patients were institutionalized criminally insane Word in Georgia. The Supreme Court stated having someone incarcerated against their will when they have not committed any crime against anyone else and not suicidal were illegally incarcerated! What the doctors continually wrote in their report that the two elderly women last named Olmstead said that they were no harm to themselves or other people and should not be in this type of institutional setting approximately 8 to 10 years. The Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for individuals to be incarcerated against their will when they did not commit any crime or were not any threat or harm to society. On this ruling 30 states tried to appeal it finally gave up because they could find no holes in the Supreme Court Olmstead Decision.
Georgia said they did not have the money the Supreme Court said we do not care it is against the law to incarcerate somebody against their will when they did not commit any crime and are no danger to anybody else including themselves. Supreme Court saw rate through George’s claim an obvious lie.The Supreme Court Olmstead decision the highest Court system in our nation 9 judges sits on the bench for life. Judges 6-3 ruling that made a legal precedence’s in the United States and that is why they are supposed to be community-based med waiver programs and consumer directed care. And George W. Bush presidential Executive Order 13217of June 18, 2001 of June 18, 2001 stating that disabled people should have the choice of living where they want to instead of having on choice and being put into a nursing home which is exactly what they wanted to do with me. I did not write the law or make it but as far as I am concerned it’s only a piece of paper worth $.10 or less in other words nice wallpaper and that is exactly what it is unless the nation in forces themselves obey their own laws. All law is no good unless it is in forest from my experience and my life this is not happening. I didn’t make these laws but that does not give the government the right to totally ignore them.That is against the Constitution of the United States of America just because government officials say they cannot afford the community-based med waiver or consumer directed care is working and costs approximately 50% less than in a nursing home and would give more opportunity for jobs in this great nation and cost the taxpayers half as much. Which Florida Governor Charlie Crist is now cutting the waiver programs so that many people are being forced off or will have reductions in care? Which is against the law according to the Supreme Court Olmstead Decision? Community-based programs med waiver and consumer directed care pay through Medicaid and Medicare? In other words they are breaking the law and except for Barack Obama which is only presidential candidate to respond to my letter! I guess the rest of the presidential candidates do not care about Disabled Civil Rights. Wake up and smell the coffee!Sincerely,Scott G. LaLonde
