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Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Take Action NOW to save the ACA and Medicaid, Result Could Be Two Major Blows To Individuals with Disabilities

The National Disability Rights Network has reached asking for help THIS WEEK in the fight to protect, and insure NO CUTS to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) !
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Once again, we need your help.
The House of Representatives is expected to introduce a bill to cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on February 27The result would be two major blows to individuals with disabilities.
Could you help us protect the ACA and Medicaid by reaching out to your Federal and state legislators, and your Governor? We need as many people as possible to tell them that repealing the ACA and CUTTING Medicaid is unacceptable. Click here to send a message to your lawmaker.
People’s health, services, and lives are at stake! We need you to reach out to your lawmakers to let them know why the ACA and Medicaid are essential to people with disabilities and their families and to vote against legislation that removes important protections.

Cuts in funding and other negative impacts to Medicaid recipients could result in:
  • Losing home and community-based services and supports. Waiting lists would quickly grow.
  • Losing other critical services such as personal care, mental health, prescription drugs, and rehabilitative services. If funds become more scarce, states may decide to stop providing these services altogether.
  • Being forced into unnecessary institutionalization. States could return to the days of “warehousing” people with disabilities in institutions.
  • Shifting the costs to individuals or family members to make up for the federal cuts. The costs of providing health care and long term services and supports will not go away, but will be shifted to individuals, parents, states, and providers,
The ACA is the most significant law for people with disabilities since the Americans with Disabilities Act:
  • Because of the ACA, health insurers can't deny health insurance if you have a disability or chronic condition.
  • Because of the ACA, there aren't arbitrary financial limits to how much health care you can get in a year or in your lifetime.
  • Because of the ACA, more people with disabilities receive supports and live in the community, not institutions.
Write your lawmakers now!

The ACA has unquestionably improved access to care for people with disabilities and chronic conditions to help them live healthy, independent, and fulfilling lives. In fact, in those states that have taken up the Medicaid expansion provided under the ACA, more people with disabilities are able to work and pay taxes and get off other financial benefits than states that have not taken up this valuable expansion of Medicaid.

So why is Congress trying to dismantle the ACA? It makes no sense! We must resist!

We cannot return to a time when people with disabilities and chronic conditions could not get health insurance and were relegated to poverty and having to choose between rent, food, or seeing a doctor or getting their prescriptions.

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