June 22, 2009 marks the10th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Olmstead ruling for disability civil rights. Some people have made an analogy between the Olmstead decision and the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 . Let's compare them.
Nearly ten years after the black civil rights movement's victory in Brown, incremental, albeit not overwhelming, progress had occurred. Nonetheless, some people thought the black civil rights struggle had stalled. Nearly ten years after the disability civil rights movement's victory in the Olmstead decision, incremental progress has occurred as well. But still, more than 313,000 people with disabilities in nursing homes (23= % of the total) want to live in the community, and yet are denied their civil right to integration, primarily because of Medicaid's historical bias in favor of segregation. Many of them are on "waiting lists" for their civil rights. Can you imagine a "waiting list" for black civil rights?……
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