Jeff Crowley from the president’s Domestic Policy Council met with the board of the NDRN (National Disability Rights Network, formerly NAPAS1) this week and a summary of how Crowley conveyed the administration’s views on the Community Choice Act was leaked to several listserves online. The disability community deserves to know what the thinking inside their government really is, so I am publicizing this text:
Jeff Crowley from President Obama’s Domestic Policy Council came to our NDRN Board meeting this week. I am certain many people on this list know him but this is the first time I’ve seen him. Here is a summary of what he said and how he said it.
He certainly confirmed that it is the administration’s intent to offer the initial health care proposal without including long term care.
He went on the express his regret at the outcome of the ADAPT action two weeks ago. He described himself as having “worked with ADAPT in the past” and certainly assumed no sense of apology or responsibility for the arrests or the dismissive comments of his colleague, just “live with it.”
In a very guarded and cautious way he expressed the desire to deal with long term care in the second session of this Congress. He described CCA as ‘one way to deal with it.’ But he also said there were other ways. As I said I never saw him before and maybe he’s always this taciturn. But his comments about CCA were lukewarm at best.
Several times he cautioned against ‘high expectations’ and was >generally very flat and careful in his delivery.
Others have more experience and insight in this but my impression was that if we are to succeed with CCA the thrust is going to come from Congress and that the administration is being very cautious.
For what it’s worth …
1. The National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems (NAPAS). .I won the “2003 Advocacy Award” from NAPAS and traveled to Washington, DC to receive the award and deliver an acceptance speech.