Block

Grants and Next Steps

by Julie Reiskin, Executive Director,

Colorado Cross Disability Coalition (CCDC)
Dear CCDC Members and Disability Community:
If Medicaid goes to a block grant we do not know what if any protections will be in place
for people with disabilities. If there is a set amount of money for each state and states
can decide what and who is most important people with disabilities, especially high
needs, could lose out.
Please contact our two Senators and President Trump and RESPECTFULLY share your
story (briefly) and ask them to tell us how we will be protected. Share this with EVERY
disability group you know. Please report any responses to CCDC.
https://www.gardner.senate.gov/contact-cory/email-cory
https://www.bennet.senate.gov/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Here is what I will say:
"I am writing as a Coloradan with a disability. I have multiple sclerosis that I acquired at age
20. I need Medicaid for personal care, a quality wheelchair and more than $1000 a month in
supplies and medications. After volunteering (meaning no pay) for 20 years, I gladly gave up
SSDI payments when the Medicaid Buy-In for Working Adults with Disabilities (Buy In) was
implemented in Colorado. For the past two years, and for the first time in my adult life at age 52
I am not impoverished. When I was diagnosed with MS I went to graduate school hoping
increased education would increase earning power. Because of the disability-related needs I
have that are ONLY available through Medicaid, I had to stop working for pay to survive. I was
forced to go on SSDI to be eligible for Medicaid.
I do not want to go back to poverty. I want to pay premiums for my Medicaid as I do now. I want
to continue being allowed to save for a rainy day. I love being fully employed and even love
paying taxes. A block grant threatens my newfound employment and freedom from poverty.
Private insurance does not cover what most people with disabilities need. A voucher for private
insurance will not work. Block grants that reduce federal contributions over time and eliminate
federal requirements that protect people with disabilities will pit us against low-income
families. This is why I believe block granting is a dangerous approach. If you MUST do block
grants the federal contribution cannot be lessened.
We also ask that you:
A) Prohibit states from reducing eligibility criteria that are in place today. Do not allow them to
cut programs like Buy In OR reduce the amount of income we can earn.
b) Require states to involve those of us who live within the Medicaid system (actual clients) to
help solve problems. The disability community can be helpful with real time, bipartisan solutions
but we must be at the table when solutions are discussed
c) Protect states against increased long term care expenditures. Elderly and disabled that need
Medicaid will lose if we have to compete against low-income parents and children. Our care
costs more. Do not put states in a position where they may decide that some people are too
expensive to survive--or where states may curtail our liberty by restricting services to the point
where we cannot function.
Please let me know how you will protect our life and liberty."