This particular moment highlights something that I keep seeing. I harp a lot about how being a politician is a job and this is the perfect encapsulation of that message in a form that everyone can understand.
Is the Social Security Administration a disaster that's impossible to navigate? That's the job of the federal politicians you elect.
Are you frustrated that people are waiting in line at food banks and people who've lost their jobs and can't find other ones because of the pandemic aren't getting more assistance? That's the job of every single elected official that represents you.
Do you find the administration of your student loans to be Byzantine and designed to make you give up on ever getting student loan forgiveness? You should be asking what your federal representatives are doing about that.
In short, we need to be asking what our government can do for us all the time. And when it's not doing what we want it to do or doing it well, that's on the politicians.
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I have been prompted tonight to share this story, so... professionally, I do public policy. And looking at 2020, my plan was to do comprehensive marriage reform for people with disabilities.
I had a whole plan. I had talked to many of the loudest voices in the field about how to make sure marriage equality worked for everyone. I had a bill idea that I was planning to take to the hill. I was planning a whole media strategy with my organization.
A short thread about the idea of choice and the poisonous ways it's used in policy work.
There is a deep and abiding assumption choice is an absolute good. Politicians rarely say they're going to take away choice. I always think of Obama's promise that people could choose to keep their health care plan after the ACA was passed.
Except, of course, when it comes to low income people. There's no choice about working and receiving SNAP benefits--if you need help paying for food, you've got to try and work.
A short 101 on Medicaid HCBS funding because I know it can be confusing to everyone. Medicaid is health insurance for the lowest income folks, which includes many people with disabilities. HCBS are the home and community based services people with disabilities can receive.
I say "can" receive because HCBS services are optional. Many services are mandatory, or required by the federal Medicaid law. HCBS are not. Often folks have to get on a waiver to access these services and waivers have waiting lists that can last decades.
This is partially because when Medicaid was created back in 1965, the traditional services provided to people with disabilities were institutional services--psychiatric asylums, facilities for people with physical or intellectual or developmental disabilities, etc.
For people new to disability policy, SSI is how we support the lowest income people with disabilities and older adults. It's an incredibly important program, but one that hasn't been updated in decades.
But a mental illness is a disability. These interventions are not only inappropriate for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, they're also inappropriate for children with mental health disabilities.
And, hot take, also really inappropriate for adults with mental health disabilities. We are outsourcing mental health care to the police.
I will, for what feels like the hundredth time, remind everyone that Florida has chosen not to expand Medicaid. Meaning that people are serious mental illness do not have access to even the basic health care available via Medicaid.