No, not New York Rochester, Minnesota Rochester. That’s right: it is the State DFL party convention prep post!

Here are a couple issues I’m focused on for the three-day convention. Surprise – they’re still pretty similar to the issues I was advocating for when I was a delegate here for the first time 8 years ago. Only this time, I’m having to raise my voice to protect Medicaid and to protect disability services even louder!

Continuity of care

As I said multiple times on this blog, I am advocating for services and rights for people with disabilities and making sure any measures taken to combat fraud in the system do not harm the people who need these services. These programs and services help a lot of people, like me, live and receive care in our communities.

You may not know just how much I love playing chess, but I am tired of being a political pawn in a chess game I didn’t ask to be a part of. People with disabilities need to be at the table in figuring out how to make this complex system work better for all of us while at the same time making it clear that fraud needs to be prevented from the start.

Protecting disability services

For those who are not in Minnesota, the state legislature just ended with a $300 million cut to disability services which actually means double that because that means no federal Medicaid match for that amount. Take a minute to watch Senator Hoffman’s comments on the Senate floor about this and thanks for trying to improve disability services. People with disabilities matter!

Friendly reminder: needs don’t go away just because you cut the budget or even growth in the budget. It just means that people go without care, wait longer for care, or end up needing more costly care in the long term. Pennywise, pound foolish or ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure or some such saying.

I am terrified by what this means for people with disabilities receiving home and community-based services. I’m lucky, I do not want to but can move back to my parents’  house if I have to. That would mean at some point starting over again with putting all of the pieces in place that took years to set up. But, what happens to the people who do not have that option?

This house of cards that many of us with disabilities depend on is seeming very fragile.

That’s it

I have to do some things before I go down to Rochester. I’ve reached the forty thousand words on my rewrite of the thrilling romantic fantasy set in alternate history. I hope you get to read it someday!