As usual, I've missed the deadline for getting this written. It's becoming a habit.
You see, Eddie has been an acquaintance of mine for over 15 years, and we make it a point to get together once every three months or so. Whenever possible, however, I do try to pawn off the meeting onto someone else (usually this newsletter's esteemed editor), because meetings with Eddie take hours and usually mean quite a bit of work for me. No luck this time, though; I had to do this meeting myself.
Well, first of all, one of the major reasons Eddie was late this time was because he and I have been working very hard to see Medicaid Buy-In legislation (the Work and Wellness Act) adopted by the NY legislature and then signed by the Governor. We have been experiencing some success.
The Assembly will have already passed the bill by the time you read this, and hopefully, the Senate will have as well. The Assembly has been a very strong supporter of this legislation from the beginning of the budget cycle, realizing the critical need for people with disabilities to be able to keep their Medicaid coverage when they get a job. It's a bill that makes sense: it gets disabled people back to work (we have a 70% unemployment rate); it adds to the tax base; and it can actually save money since other health insurance policies would have to be used first and, depending on income, people with disabilities would also pay a premium.
The Senate now has 5 sponsors, including Tom Libous and James Seward. We met with Senator Seward in March and urged him to review the bill and introduce it in the Senate. He said he would give it strong consideration, and apparently he did. We provided lots of information and encouragement to Senator Libous over several months, also with good results. We are especially grateful for these Senators' support, since they represent the 3 counties of STIC's service area. Their sponsorship is a truly great boon for the disability community and we thank them both very much.
The Governor's office has been delaying further progress on the bill, claiming, "the price tag is too high". Advocates asked to see their figures but they would not let us review them. Yet the Governor himself, at a press conference in September 1998, said, "The challenge is clear: disabled individuals in New York State want and deserve to work, and we intend to see that they succeed in doing so. We want to enhance access to employment for persons with disabilities, but for this to happen, we need to build assurances into the system so that persons with disabilities who collect SSI or SSDI can work without fear of losing their health insurance and other critical benefits." We'd like the Governor to live up to his own words and sign this bill into law when it reaches his desk. Hundreds of thousands of voters with disabilities, as well as their friends and families, will be very appreciative of such a demonstration of support for their issues.
Just as I was about to leave to meet Eddie, I got a phone call about our golf tournament. For a variety of reasons unrelated to STIC, we lost $4,500 in sponsorships this year, and we're scrambling to recruit new sponsors for the event. Sponsors get lots of recognition, and can select levels from $100 to $2,500. The highest amount entitles them to a full-page ad in this newsletter. Call STIC if you have any suggestions or leads on a potential sponsor.
Eddie and I rescheduled our appointment. Just as I sat down with him, I got the exciting news that the 35 Independent Living Centers in NY State received a $1 million increase in the recently passed budget. We haven't seen increases two years in a row since the 1980s. This was such great news that we just had to go tell all our friends, thank all our supporters, and celebrate.
It may seem that I don't consider my times with Eddie as important as my other responsibilities. The truth is, I sometimes just don't know what to talk to Eddie about. STIC is working on so many issues, and there are pros and cons to writing about each. We must consider our timing in releasing information: Whom will we anger? Who will support us? What strategies are we using to promote our agenda? Topics of our discussions are chosen with care, since past experience shows that the results of our meetings can be controversial and also have tremendous impact, a thing not to be abused or taken lightly. In fact, there's a very important issue that you aren't reading about here because those responsible haven't had a chance to discuss it with us and come to a resolution.
When Eddie and I finally met, we talked about all of the issues mentioned here. We also spent some time strategizing about the best ways to fight the most recent threats to the ADA, but we deferred that matter to those more knowledgeable than us, and you can read more about it here and here.
Inevitably, as always, our conversation got around to how to balance the growing need to provide direct services to consumers with the very urgent need for more community and systems change. While we did not resolve this dilemma, we did decide to use some of next year's budget increase to hire a part-time Systems Change Coordinator. As you know, we already do much advocacy around many issues. A coordinator will help us use resources more efficiently and effectively, can get information out to staff and the public quicker, and can keep apprised of more issues than those of us who have many different responsibilities.
The meeting ended on that highly positive note. We're excited to be planning a more active approach to advocacy, and we intend to be an even more formidable force for change than ever before.
