Brilliant addition to the END THE WAIT and add portability campaign

[Guest guest]

From the original poster of this idea....

THE COSTS & BENEFITS

I want to elaborate on my original proposal.

The government bailed out banks and the auto industry at a cost of $700B and

counting. Jobs were still lost. Bonuses to executives were still paid.

Who has benefited?

If the federal government invested $12-15B per year in the Medicaid Waiver

program, this is what could be expected for results to stimulate the economy

AND help the most vulnerable people in the country:

1. This figure could potentially END waiting lists. This is based on

300,000 people waiting at an average cost of $40,000 per year per person

served.

2. Much of the waiver funds will go toward helping parts of this population

to WORK. I don't know how many are able, but lets just say 1/4 of them:

75,000 put to work.

3. New service providers would have to be hired to serve these

individuals. I don't know how many people - but lets just say one person

for every person on the waiting list. That's 300,000 people put to work.

4. A portion of the parents who have had to be out of the work force to

care for their children at home because of lack of services would go back to

work in their careers. Again, I don't know how many but consider the fact

that those individuals were earning wages and paying taxes when they were

working. Consider also that many of them had valuable careers and can no

longer contribute to our economy because they must care for their children.

Let's just say 10,000 people would get to go back to their careers. They

would also get health insurance from those jobs.

5. Another portion of the parents have had to be on public assistance just

to be able to care for their children.

6. The health of these families will improve.

7. Siblings will be able to continue on with their lives, not put their own

careers on hold to care for their sibling.

If these services were also portable - from state to state the same services

and same waivers are provided then:

Families will have the same opportunities as other families - to move around

the country for better jobs or a lower cost of living.

We are behind several of the other ideas posted here. With 300,000 people

on the waiting list - we need to get every family here to vote.

Please, don't just invite people in your address book to vote. FIND many

other groups to invite that you do not know. Join a new support group - and

tell them about this. Do some google searches and find all the groups you

can find and send them an email.

When are we (the affected community) going to RISE UP together and make this

happen? It is up to US and nobody else.

This is from Beauregard from Colorado who wrote the original request

for action. Now she has taken this one step further.

http://www.change.org/ideas/fully_fund_Medicaid_waivers_for_the_developmentally_\

disabled<http://www.change.org/ideas/fully_fund_mediaciad_waivers_for_the_develo\

pmentally_disabled>

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Sara - Life is a journey- we choose the path.