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(Updated July 26, 2010)

Revised ADA Regulations Implementing Title II and Title III
(New July 26, 2010)

Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (New July 23, 2010)
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View Via On-Demand Accessible Video on ADA.gov:

Department of Justice Civil Rights Division’s
Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Friday, July 23, 2010

with Attorney General Eric Holder, former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, former Congressman Tony Coelho, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez, and presentations by ADA experts who played significant roles in the development and passage of the ADA in 1990.

Relive History: The Signing of the ADA, July 26, 1990

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WarIsACrime.org

On the House calendar for this week is a vote on a $33 billion supplemental bill to escalate the war in Afghanistan. The Senate did not accept the House version (passed without a vote on July 1st). The House will likely now vote on the Senate version or something close to it. This will likely mean something quite unusual: a straightforward vote in which yes means yes more war, and no means no.

Whether we block the bill or not, we will now be able to identify clearly and unambiguously the war supporters and war opponents. They will need to be punished and rewarded while they’re home for August and at the polls in November. If the majority of Democrats vote against the war funds, we will be able to point out that opposition from the President’s own party. And the closer we come to defeating the bill the more we will have to build on as the peace movement joins with the labor and civil rights movements this fall.

Our message is simple:

Vote no on funding this escalation of war, regardless of whether it’s a procedural vote, and regardless of any good measures attached to it.

FCNL has a toll-free number to call your representative: 1-888-493-5443, or use the standard number (202) 224-3121.

Pull U.S. Troops Out of Pakistan

The House is expected to debate and vote on Tuesday on a privileged resolution (HCR 301) introduced by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul to remove U.S. forces from Pakistan. The resolution directs the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Pakistan. On this one we want to ask for Yes votes.

More info.

Call Congress (202) 224-3121.

When I was five years old, I was in a coma for 3 weeks, in critical condition with failing kidneys. Two weeks before, I had a strep throat. It lingered, but my parents had no health insurance. They could  afford only to trust my young immune system. By the time my throat felt better, an acute glomeral infection had set in, and my high fever lured me into never never land, so a trip to the hospital was required, money or no money.

I have never forgotten the conversation my mom and dad were having at the moment I woke up. My doctor was explaining to them that if I did fully recover, I would likely have several lifelong health problems; the most common being Rheumatic fever. I know my parents were, at that moment, unaware of my near wakefulness.  They spoke candidly, unguarded, vulnerable as children themselves in the face of the fear that they would not be able to afford even one more illness from me, the last in a family of four children.

We were not really poor, just small town low income. But health insurance, even back then, was a luxury my family could not afford, because of the concerns private health insurance companies had over whether my congenital anomaly (I have ectrodactyly, a deformity involving my hands and feet) might create some ‘unknown’ costs for them if they allowed me to obtain coverage.

Under the new health insurance act, it still is not clear whether a kid deemed ‘ risky’ me would be ‘redlined’ from ‘normal; insurance pools  or somehow ‘shoehorned ‘ into a cluster of shared risk private companies. I know, we have a lot left to learn about the details that will survive the final showdown of amendments in the Senate. It’s one thing to finally have the discrimination part of (precondition/pro life) addressed, but it’s quite another to feel ANY confidence in ANY private health insurance company(ies) NOT using this to their advantage, to get their government bailout on those of us who are ‘costly to cover’ and low income. Without regulation on the limits to how much they will be able to charge for the privilege of insuring us high maintenance citizens, how can it be anything than just a different kind of taxpayer bailout?

Frankly, my experience (having birthed two children witrh ectrodactyly myself) young adults with physical anomalies have no significantly higher doctor visitation rates than do conventionally equipped young adults  but BOTH populations are about to become a carefully targeted group for the ‘required coverage’ that this bill stiplates…and that will be a heavy burden on Obama’s shiny new digital voting bloc.

Like every other Progressive Democrat who still supports Obama, I am grateful that we have, at least, allowed Senator Ted Kennedy some peace in his grave, because a huge first step has been taken.  But it is so much NOT the healthcare we wanted, we NEEDED, it is NOT single payer (Medicare For All) and it is worrisome to not have REAL regulation in place to stanch the flow of profit taking that will come from Big Insurance as long as they can get by with it.

I know for my parents, the notion that they would be forced to buy private health insurance for all four of their children and themselves has them rolling in their graves.  It must seem Orwellian to them, and if they had been required buy law to buy private health insurance coverage back then, every Progressive Democrat in Austin Minnesota (post apocalyptic/union busted headquarters of Hormel Meats) would have joined them in protest, by tossing their Spam in Turtle Creek, for beginners.  I would have joined them, in my little kid hospital gown.



HR676 IS WHAT AMERICA NEEDS!

Only HR676 would have made this a shameful legacy of America’s past. But we won’t get what we need from Obama! So disappointing, but true! Single payer healthcare (HR676) is, tragically, not within our grasp:(

Firm cancels health insurance coverage for girl, 17, after celiac disease diagnosis

My mother died in a  hospice care in San Diego.  My grandmother was a nurse in an Oakland Hospital.  I  cannot afford adequate health insurance in California, or most of the rest of our United States, for that matter.  My  awareness and appreciation of  the “Healthcare Not Warfare” campaign launched by the Progressive Democrats of America over this last year has helped shape the kind of activism that truly speaks to my heart.

In a presidential election year, especially this one, when the sheer urgency of the moment begs to grab all the attention,  my activist friends and I  are scattered thin, literally and figuratively.  We each have pet causes; America’s troubles are too numerous even for full time loudmouths to give voice!

My own personal favorites over the last eight years of a Neo-con Bush administration have been election integrity and  corporate media reform, both equally hungry issues soon to be yanking on the Obama chain.   I will be among the hordes of citizens waiting to make these issues important to our new president.

But I  am also selfishly, passionately driven to make this slogan and its campaign leaders in the Progressive Democrats of America to help in every way possible to make  “Healthcare Not Warfare” a priority on the first hundred days agenda. I am in good company, too.   The  powerful CNA, California Nurses’  Association and several other teamsters unions  have joined together with  PDA (pdamerica.org) to  create a groundswell of  momentum to help shape  President Obama’s  universal healthcare plan.

Currently,  his platform does not include  the all important single payer  clause, so the big pharma and big insurance  corporate cabal would still  be able to manipulate the insurance payout matrix.   Single payer simply means that we as individuals would be able to rely on a much simpler, more cost effective system like Medicare to handle claims and payouts and  even more significant, to lobby for competitive pricing from Big Pharma on our behalf.

When the California  nurses (who strengthened their union sufficiently enough to permanently  tarnish Governor Schwarzenegger’s claim to be a ‘friend of the service employee’)  decided to throw their fists in the air for single payer universal health insurance,  the issue gained  a feisty  ally.   The nurses had come out in massive numbers for movie theatre openings of Michael  Moore’s “Sicko”, handling out pamphlets explaining how single payer healthcare for every American was not a radical, left wing, socialist idea, but a reasonable, logical solution to one of  America’s  most shameful problems; we  are the ONLY industrialized nation on the planet with  an estimated fifty million  uninsured citizens.

National PDA Director Tim Carpenter tapped into this whirling dervish of  life in the balance caregivers and he has been marshalling his  nightingales toward DC ever since. Obama will soon feel the  wind  at his back  from a nation ready for  change.  Part of that change must include  making  Americans  feel a healthy pride in our country!  Universal, single payer healthcare will  help  do that.   Who better to give our pride a healthy glow, than an army of nurses with progressive human values  and  a concise, simple agenda for  a new president’s first hundred days?