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97–397 PDF 2005

LIVING WITH DISABILITIES IN THE UNITED

STATES: A SNAPSHOT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND

WELLNESS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 24, 2004

Serial No. 108–242

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNET, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND WELLNESS

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

DIANE E. WATSON, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

MARK WALKER, Chief of Staff

MINDI WALKER, Professional Staff Member

DANIELLE PERRAUT, Clerk

RICHARD BUTCHER, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 24, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Justesen, Troy, Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education

and Rehabilitation Services, U.S. Department of Education; and Donald

A. Young, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Health Policy,

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ...................................... 20

Langevin, Hon. James, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Rhode Island ............................................................................................. 13

Reich, Alan A., president, National Organization on Disability; Robert

David Hall, actor, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Double Amputee;

Peter Blanck, Charles M. and Marion Kierscht professor of law, director, law, health policy & disability center, University of Iowa College

of Law; and John Register, manager, Paralympic Academy, U.S.

Paralympics, U.S. Olympic Committee ....................................................... 61

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Blanck, Peter, Charles M. and Marion Kierscht professor of law, director,

law, health policy & disability center, University of Iowa College of

Law, prepared statement of ......................................................................... 105

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 4

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 55

Hall, Robert David, actor, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Double Amputee, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 97

Justesen, Troy, Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education

and Rehabilitation Services, U.S. Department of Education, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 24

Langevin, Hon. James, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Rhode Island, prepared statement of ...................................................... 16

Register, John,manager, Paralympic Academy, U.S. Paralympics, U.S.

Olympic Committee, prepared statement of ............................................... 90

Reich, Alan A., president, National Organization on Disability, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 64

Watson, Hon. Diane E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 10

Young, Donald A., M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Health

Policy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 34

(1)

LIVING WITH DISABILITIES IN THE UNITED

STATES: A SNAPSHOT

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND WELLNESS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dan Burton (chairman

of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Burton, Watson, and Cummings.

Staff present: Mark Walker, staff director; Mindi Walker, Brian

Fauls, and Dan Getz, professional staff members; Nick Mutton,

press secretary; Danielle Perraut, clerk; Richard Butcher, minority

counsel; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. BURTON. Good morning. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness will come to order.

I ask unanimous consent that all witnesses’ and Members’ written opening statements be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I want to thank everybody for being here. I apologize for our tardiness, but it has been a pretty busy day; and we may get some

votes during the hearing, and if we do, we will have to briefly adjourn and come back.

I also ask that all articles, exhibits and extraneous and tabular

materials referred to be included in the record. Without objection,

so ordered.

In the event of other Members attending the hearing, I ask

unanimous consent that they be permitted to serve as a member

of the subcommittee for today’s hearing. Without objection, so ordered.

The subcommittee is convening today to examine the quality of

life experienced by persons with disabilities in the United States.

In addition, the subcommittee is going to discuss the ways in which

the Federal Government and nongovernmental organizations are

working to expand the participation and contributions of this population of Americans.

A disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that

substantially limits one or more life activities of an individual. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are over 49 million persons in the United States living with some form of disability.

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Unfortunately, the rate of disability in our country is staggering

and a majority of this underserved population does not enjoy the

quality of life that many of us take for granted every day.

The U.S. Government has taken many actions over the years in

order to better accommodate the population of disabled Americans.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which is Public Law 93–112, was

the first civil rights act with regard to disability. This legislation

represented the first step toward more sensitivity and accessibility

for persons with disabilities, and established a roll for the Federal

Government to provide vocational rehabilitation for disabled Americans.

After several years of researching the best solutions on disability

policy in the United States, in 1990, Congress passed and the

President signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act,

which is Public Law 101–336, which promulgated the first antidiscrimination guidelines on disability in the United States. This

law prohibits discrimination in the hiring and continued employment of disabled persons in the workplace and provides that ‘‘no

individual with a disability shall be excluded from participation

and denied the benefits of or subjected to discrimination by a public entity.’’ The act also dictates that no person shall be discriminated against the enjoyment of any place of public accommodation

based on a disability.

The Honorable James R. Langevin, the Congressman from Rhode

Island, is with us today. He was rendered paralyzed after an accident occurred while attending a Boy Scout event when he was 16

years of age. Since that time, the Congressman has worked diligently in the Rhode Island State Assembly, as the Secretary of

State of Rhode Island, and now as a Representative of the Rhode

Island Second Congressional District, to sponsor and support a variety of health and disability legislation and other efforts.

I did not know you were Secretary of State.

Mr. LANGEVIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BURTON. Is that right?

Mr. LANGEVIN. For 6 years.

Mr. BURTON. Son of a gun.

In addition to proposing and supporting various health care initiatives, the Congressman founded and currently serves as a cochair of the Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus in the Congress, and he

is to be congratulated for his efforts in that area. The subcommittee has the distinct honor and privilege to have Congressman

Langevin testify this afternoon about his numerous activities with

regard to disability policy, as well as to give his personal experiences as an individual living with a disability in the United States.

The Federal Government has not only ensured that discrimination based upon disability is unlawful in the United States, but

also has worked toward providing programs to assist with health

care and educational opportunities for the disabled population. To

explain these most important initiatives, Troy Justensen, Acting

Assistant Secretary with the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the Department of Education is here to speak

on the educational programs made available to students with disabilities.

3

In addition, the subcommittee will be receiving testimony from

the Honorable Don Young, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office on Health Policy at the Department of Health and Human

Services. Mr. Young will testify on the various health care programs and services that the agency has implemented to assist the

Nation’s disabled population.

To further expound upon disability policy in the United States,

Dr. Peter Blanck, Director of the Law, Health Policy & Disability

Center at the University of Iowa College of Law will testify today

on the status of disabilities in the country.

There is no question that persons with disabilities have to overcome physical or mental obstacles every day, and many times both,

but there are some individuals who have conquered their impediment and gone on to achieve exceptional success and greatness. For

example, even though a car accident rendered Robert David Hall

a double amputee in 1978, he continued his career as an entertainer and went on to act professionally in numerous television and

movies roles, most notably as a current star of the popular TV

show, CSI, Crime Scene Investigation, where he has played the

role of Dr. Al Robbins for several seasons. As a national figure, Mr.

Hall has used his celebrity status to further the cause of disability

awareness around the country, serving on various boards promoting disability support, including the National Organization on Disability. The subcommittee is delighted to have Mr. Hall here speaking on his involvement with the disability community.

While physical disabilities may be perceived as limitations preventing individuals from participating in athletic competition, more

than 5,000 individuals with disabilities around the world participate in the Paralympics, a division of the Olympic Committee reserved for persons living with a disability. The Paralympic features

21 sports, 18 of which are also contested in the Olympics. To gain

a better understanding of this competition, the subcommittee will

receive testimony from Mr. John Register, manager of the

Paralympic Academy for the U.S. Olympic Committee and a

Paralympic Gold Medal winner.

Although there have been many advances in technology and disability policy in the United States, the quality of life of these individuals has been shown through many surveys to be less than nondisabled individuals. Recently, the National Organization on Disability commissioned a Harris poll survey regarding the life-styles

of both individuals living with and without disabilities. The subcommittee has invited the President of NOD, Mr. Alan Reich, to

testify on the results of this poll and potential initiatives that may

lead to a better quality of life for individuals with disabilities.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and to

speak on this very important matter and I look forward to their

testimony.

Our first panel is the Congressman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Ms. Watson just arrived and, Ms. Watson, since you

have arrived, do you have an opening statement you would like to

make before we introduce our colleague.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But there is some important business I have to get out of the way first, and that is to

say, ‘‘Happy birthday,’’ to Richard Butcher on my staff.

Mr. BURTON. My birthday was 2 days ago, and I did not hear you

call me and wish me, ‘‘Happy birthday.’’ When you reach 29, like

me, it really gets tough.

Ms. WATSON. Let me say to you, Mr. Chair, ‘‘Happy birthday for

being 29 again and again.’’

I want to commend you for leading the subcommittee on this

very important, important issue. I would also like to thank my colleagues and the Honorable James Langevin from Rhode Island for

his testimony that he is about to give when I finish. Let me go

through this real quickly.

The disabled in America are sometimes overlooked in the land

where everyone supposedly has a voice. Americans with disabilities

are Americans just the same, and according to the Constitution of

the United States, the disabled are afforded the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness exactly the same as any other

citizen.

Whether or not the disability is from a birth defect or an amputation or an accident or blindness or deafness, the disabled should

have a voice, even those disabled that cannot speak and communicate their ideas through sign language, pictures, captions and in

other ways.

Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate the opportunity we have to hear

about living with a disability here in the United States of America,

and I also extend a very special thanks to you and to those who

are assisting our communications today. I understand that there

are numerous challenges to life for every human being and a disability adds even more.

As a long-time public servant, I believe that it takes a very

strong individual to overcome many of the obstacles in our society.

I also believe that good public policy works to ensure the well-being

of those with all these challenges. It is a difficult task, but it is

something that we have to strive for.

Congress has stepped up to the plate and acknowledged the need

for attention to the disabled. Unacceptably, Federal action in some

areas has let the disabled community down. And I look forward to

listening to the results of the Harris Poll survey that was commissioned by the National Organization on Disability. The poll is one

instrument of the disabled constituency to speak out, and Congress

must listen.

One area that I would like to highlight is education. As a former

educator and a former school board member, disabled Americans

are very close to my heart. Education can equip an individual with

or without a disability to engage in society. The President and Congress are failing special needs children by breaking the promises

we made when we enacted IDEA in 1975. When Congress passed

the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, later known as

IDEA, we explicitly promised to provide 40 percent of the excess

costs of special education; 29 years later we have yet to keep that

9

promise. The Obey resolution, coincidentally being debated on the

House floor today, puts us on the path to fully funding IDEA over

a 6-year period. It would provide for a $2.2 billion increase in special education funding. And this is $1.2 billion over the President’s

request. In perspective, President Bush has requested a $1 billion increase in special education each year since he took office. At this

rate of increase, we will have difficulty reaching full funding for

IDEA. In education, we cannot afford to leave any child behind, especially those with disabilities.

So, in closing, Mr. Chairman, I would like to acknowledge the

two very strong representatives of the disabled community that are

here to testify today. The first is Mr. Robert David Hall, who is

currently the character Dr. Al Robbins on CSI, that is, the Crime

Scene Investigation series. And Mr. Hall is a double amputee that

has successfully transferred his acting style to the award-winning

CSI television drama. Mr. Hall’s car accident in 1978 did not stop

his desire for an acting career. I commend his dedication in furthering awareness on the disabled around the country. Mr. Hall

also sits on several boards that promote support for the disabled,

including the National Organization on Disability.

The second gentleman is Mr. John Register. And I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Register at the Congressional Olympic dinner

this year. Mr. Register is a model for all Americans and a testimony in perseverance. While training for the 1996 Olympics, Mr.

Register severed an artery in his left leg. The resulting medical action was amputation below the left hip. Also an ambassador to the

disabled community, Mr. Register trained for and won a medal in

the Sydney Paralympic games in 2000, and we were there.

Mr. Chairman, I am very, very proud to be part of your committee, particularly with the subject matter today. These people in

front of us offer us hope. Thank you. I yield back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Diane E. Watson follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Thank you for your kind remarks, and you can sing

‘‘Happy Birthday’’ to me later.

You might notice that we are the first committee to have closed

captioning for the hearing impaired. And I think that is a giant

step forward for this committee, and I hope the rest of the committees in the Congress will follow suit.

Representative Langevin, I appreciate very much your being

here. We appreciate the contributions you are making, not only

here, but in other areas, and we welcome your testimony.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to be

here. Before I give my prepared remarks, let me just add something even more important and take the opportunity to wish you

a happy birthday.

I want to thank Chairman Burton, Ranking Member Watson and

the entire Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness for convening today’s hearings on Americans living with disabilities in the

United States.

I commend you for your dedication to improving the lives of

Americans with disabilities, and I am certainly grateful for the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing.

Mr. Chairman, as you mentioned in your opening remarks, at the

age of 16, I served as a Boy Scout Explorer police cadet. I went

through the program in my hometown of Warwick, RI, but on August 22, 1980, my dream of a career in law enforcement was shattered. I stood in a locker room with a fellow cadet watching two

members of police SWAT team examine a handgun, which they believed was not loaded. That gun accidentally discharged, launching

a bullet that ricocheted off a metal locker and into my neck severing my spinal cord and leaving me paralyzed.

At first, I was convinced that gun and this wheelchair had ruined

my life. But I learned in time that a badge and a gun are not the

only ways to make a difference or serve your community. I have

been fortunate to be able fulfill my dreams of public service by

serving as a delegate to the Rhode Island Constitutional Convention, a member of the State’s General Assembly, the Rhode Island

Secretary of State, and now representing Rhode Island’s Second

Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The 24 years I have spent living with a disability in America

have been very challenging, but also very fulfilling, both personally

and professionally. These years have also seen great change. Discrimination in employment back then was legal; buildings were not

designed with accessibility in mind; and accommodations of disability viewed really as charity, not as a civil right.

Looking back in my early years in a wheelchair, my college application process comes to mind. I was not able to go to my first choice

school, because, quite simply, it just was not accessible. It was

nearly 10 years before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and there was little that I could do about that. Fortunately for me, accommodations at my backup school, Rhode Island

College, were better, and I was able to receive a quality education

and the opportunity to put some of my new dreams to the test.

14

However, not all Americans have been so fortunate. Many Americans with disabilities today face a lack of access to health care and

assistive technology, barriers to employment and a society that remains less inclusive than it could be. I want to discuss some of the

most critical issues that I see facing Americans with disabilities

today, and those are health care and employment.

People with disabilities are at risk in the health care system because of their wide-ranging health needs, their relatively heavy use

of services and typically low incomes. The leading source of health

coverage for people with disabilities is Medicaid. And while some

States have established Medicaid buy-in programs for people with

disabilities, too many people with disabilities are still barred from

the workplace for fear of losing their eligibility for this program.

Meanwhile, in the face of rising costs and budget shortfalls,

States are aiming to slow growing in program spending by curtailing benefits, increasing cost-sharing requirements, and restricting

eligibility.

Mr. Chairman, I can personally attest that living with a disability is very expensive. Higher copayments and requirements for a

person with a disability can simply be catastrophic.

Finally, Medicaid has yet to break away from the institutional

bias. Only about 25 percent of Medicaid long-term care funds go to

services and supports in home and community settings. Only three

States spend more than 50 percent of their Medicaid long-term care

funds on home- and community-based care. Individuals that are eligible for nursing home services should be able to choose between

that and community attendant services and supports.

Congress has the power to level the playing field and give Medicaid beneficiaries equal access to community-based services and supports. We simply cannot achieve the goal of implementing the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision until we remove this institutional

bias.

Several spending proposals in Congress would help to begin to

rebalance and expand the long-term care system and provide quality supports and services in the community. These include

MiCASSA, which would require States to include community-based

personal assistance services in their Medicaid programs, and the

Money Follows the Person Act and the NFI Medicaid Demonstrations Act, which provide demonstration grants to States to help individuals transition from institutions to community settings.

Moving to the topic of employment, I want to address the barriers that keep Americans with disabilities from the workplace. The

unemployment rate in the disabilities community is a staggering

70 percent. Every day I hear stories from people who want to work,

but are kept from doing so by barriers that we can easily pull together to overcome, primarily the concern over health benefits and

the lack of transportation.

The cost of direct government and private payments to support

people with disabilities of employment age without jobs is estimated to be approximately $232 billion annually; another $195 billion in earnings and taxes are lost each year because Americans

with disabilities are unemployed.

Programs like a Ticket-to-Work, designed to promote work by

providing SSI and DI recipients with a ticket to purchase rehabiliVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:10 Jan 05, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
15

tation from State VR agencies and other providers, begin to address these issues, but significant implementation challenges remain. Meanwhile, the 108th Congress has failed to agree on reauthorizing legislation through the Workforce Investment Act that

would adequately provide displaced workers with the information,

training and resources necessary to obtain or regain employment

through the design and implementation of the one-stop delivery

system.

Now, I am concerned that without increased investment and support for State vocational rehabilitation programs, much of the

progress we have made will all be reversed, and more Americans

will be relegated to a life spent in isolation, instead of sitting in

a classroom, a board room or here with me in the U.S. Congress.

Mr. Chairman I want to thank you for the opportunity to raise

some of the pressing issues facing Americans with disabilities.

With the bipartisan passage of the Improving Access to Assistive

Technology for Individuals with Disabilities Act earlier this month,

we have seen commitment from members of both political parties

to expand opportunities for people with disabilities in America. And

I am certainly confident that we can make a great difference together for millions of American by continuing to work together in

this fashion.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. It is an honor to

be here.

[The prepared statement of Hon. James Langevin follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Congressman.

There is not supposed to be any discrimination against people

with disabilities in employment, but we obviously know that there

are. And I imagine a lot of those discriminations are silent in nature. They are not responsible.

I do not know if this has ever been talked about, and I do not

know if it is something doable or not, but it sounds to me that it

is something that is doable, and that is tax incentives for business

and industry to hire the disabled, an incentive for them to go the

extra mile to make sure the large number of people who have disabilities do have gainful employment. Have you ever looked into

that?

Mr. LANGEVIN. Sure, and I think that there may be some. And

I do not want to speak off the cuff about that, but certainly tax incentives would be helpful and there is definitely a payoff return on

the investment. For every dollar that is spent on putting someone

to work as opposed to having the recipient on a social program,

there is a benefit begun in terms of wages that are earned and also

in taxes that are paid. So there is truly demonstrated research that

says investment in putting people to work is far better and a bigger

payoff than there is in the cost of actually supporting the program.

Mr. BURTON. You cited some very large figures, in the hundreds

of billions of dollars, I believe, in your testimony, that is being lost

because we have so many people who have disabilities who are not

employed. We passed legislation, I think in the last 15, 20 years,

that helped train the unemployable in the area of giving them

skills so they could go out into the workplace. I think the Job

Training Partnership Act and a couple of others were incentives for

industry to hire people and train them, and I think there were tax

incentives to do that.

I do not know—maybe Ms. Watson or somebody else knows; I

cannot think of anything like that has been done to encourage the

private sector to hire people or train people with disabilities so they

could be gainfully employed. If there is not something like that, I

would be very happy to work with you to draft legislation that I

think would probably be looked upon favorably by the entire Congress, that might help in this area. It seems like to me that giving

a tax incentive to the private sector to train and hire people with

disabilities would be a real plus and a winner for everybody.

So if that is not the case, I would like to work with you and others to see if we cannot come up with something like that.

Mr. LANGEVIN. I look forward to working with you on that, Mr.

Chairman.

Ms. WATSON. May I respond? Public Law 97–142 required, I

know, school districts to provide accessibility and gave grants to

school districts; and in a way, that relates to your question, tax incentives. They gave grants, and so maybe there is some way we can

combine that. If they are able to adjust their facilities to make

them accessible, then they could go after a grant and receive it.

Also they would get a tax credit and they could be combined.

Maybe somebody could speak on that, who is an expert in that

area. But I do remember that particular part.

Mr. BURTON. Most businessmen and -women respond to tax incentives that save them money and make them money. And to get

19

a talented employee and at the same time get a tax break for it,

I think, like I said, would be a winner for everybody.

Let me just ask one or two more questions quickly.

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Chairman, if I could offer something else too

that would be helpful.

Back when the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed,

there was money within DOJ to do a public education program, especially with employers about what is required under the ADA and

what it really means. It has been about 12 years since ADA was

passed, and I think that one of the barriers to people hiring with

disabilities is the fear about what ADA requires. I think if there

were money that was spent in helping to educate employers about

how the ADA works and it is not something that requires an onerous burden, that would help eliminate some of the fear of what it

means to hire people—someone with a disability, that would go a

long way toward encouraging employers to bring people with disabilities into the work force.

Mr. BURTON. Well, maybe we could look at that at the same time

we are looking at the incentive approach.

Are there other any other programs, other than what we have

just been talking about, that you have been working on, or with

other groups to push legislatively to get passed, that would help in

this area?

Mr. LANGEVIN. Well, as cochairman of the Bipartisan Disability

Caucus, we are trying to draw attention to programs that are

working. The caucus, for example, has hosted events highlighting

the contribution of a range of discretionary programs from the Developmental Disability Act to the Help America Vote Act. We have

also done a great deal of outreach to educate members on the programs that have come up for reauthorization in the last few years,

such as IDEA and the Workforce Investment Act.

Also, the programs that I mentioned earlier, programs that I

found to be beneficial to people with disabilities, today the State

assistive technology programs funded by the Assistive Technology

Act certainly played a tremendous role in promoting awareness of

and access to devices that allow individuals with disabilities to contribute to society, and also vocational rehabilitation programs,

which are also administered through the States, are an important

tool in placing people with disabilities into the work force.

Mr. BURTON. Ms. Watson, do you have any questions?

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Langevin, I would just like to have you let us

know what other kind of programs, based on barriers that are still

in the way for the disabled to find jobs—what kind of programs do

you think we ought to develop here in Congress that might be effective?

So think about it, get back to us. I know that the tax incentive

would work, but you might want to be more specific in terms of the

barriers that you see still existing.

Mr. LANGEVIN. Clearly, the health care and the transportation

barriers are the biggest ones to overcome, and I think the greatest

benefit would be to bring people with disabilities into the work

force. If people with disabilities were not afraid at any time to have

to worry about losing their health care benefits, that would be a

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tremendous incentive to get people off of social programs and get

them out into the workplace.

But even that needs to be coupled with programs that provide

transportation for people. It is no good to be able to get an application in if you are not able to get back and forth to work. So more

assistance for public transportation programs would be of great

benefit. I think those are the two biggest and most important tangible examples that I can give you.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Congressman. We really appreciate

your hard work, and we will look forward to working with you in

the future to try to solve some of these problems.

Mr. LANGEVIN. I look forward to that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you

for the opportunity.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you.

Our next panel consists of the Honorable Troy Justesen. He is

the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education

and Rehabilitation Services at the Department of Education; and

the Honorable Don Young, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Health Policy for the Department of Health and Human

Services.

If you gentlemen would come forward, we would appreciate it.

Now we do not swear in Congressmen because we understand all

Congressmen are above reproach, so we let them get away with

this, but gentlemen, we will swear you in.

So will you raise your right hands, please?

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. BURTON. We will start with you, Mr. Justesen. Do you have

an opening statement?

Mr. JUSTESEN. I do, Congressman.

STATEMENTS OF TROY JUSTESEN, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY, OFFICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; AND

DONALD A. YOUNG, M.D., DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY,

OFFICE OF HEALTH POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

AND HUMAN SERVICES

Mr. JUSTESEN. First of all, thank you for having me here again

before you today. It is a pleasure to be here. And, Congresswoman,

it is a pleasure to see you again.

I am the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services within the Department

of Education. So much of what you discussed with Congressman

Langevin is directly related to the work that I have the privilege

and responsibility for implementing in the Department of Education.

I want to frame my discussion with you today around the President’s New Freedom Initiative and how the New Freedom Initiative is our guiding principle for providing services to people with

disabilities from birth through the life span, because that is the

challenge within the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation

Services in the Department.

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The New Freedom Initiative is the President’s goal and vision for

expanding and building upon the successes of Congress’ success in

special education, rehabilitation services and basic civil rights, like

the Americans with Disabilities Act and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. But we want to move and buildupon that

success and that foundation.

The New Freedom Initiative [NFI], has four basic components,

and I will outline those components for you and give you some examples about the work we are doing to improve services for children, youth and adults with disabilities throughout the country.

Now, NFI is basically divided into four main pillars or components, as I call them. The first is increasing access to assistive

technologies, universally designed technologies for individuals with

disabilities.

The second is expanding educational opportunities for children,

youth and adults with disabilities.

The third is integrating these individuals, Americans with disabilities, successfully into the work force.

And the fourth and most encompassing component of the New

Freedom Initiative is to make sure the community, community life

and accessibility is fully available to all people with disabilities. So

the fourth component is mainly the broad theme which the other

three components fall under.

Now, with respect to increasing access to assistive technologies,

universally designed technologies, the Department administers the

programs of assistive technology in our National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation Research. We do what Congressman

Langevin alluded to, which is we implement the Assistive Technology Act of 1998.

That act provides opportunities for State systems to change programs and opportunities for direct loan programs for individuals

with disabilities to obtain the assistive technology devices and services they need in order to live independently in the communities of

their choice. We are working very closely through our partners at

the State level on making these funds available to provide low-interest and long-term loans of affordability, so that individuals with

disabilities can purchase any device or service they need to live

independently.

That is a major achievement and one in which the President’s

New Freedom Initiative builds upon, and we are working very

closely with our partners at HHS and the other partners in the

Federal agencies because the New Freedom Initiative is the President’s challenge for agencies to look beyond the boundaries of their

own programs and services and look at ways in which we can work

in partnership at the Federal level and be a role model for State

and local entities to improve services for people with disabilities.

The President has signed an Executive memorandum, and this

is just one example of how we move technology forward for people

with disabilities. And his EM, his Executive memorandum, challenged all of the Federal agencies to work together and develop a

cross-agency Web site that was available to all Americans, including Americans with disabilities, to access a single site location, a

single one-stop center whereby individuals can go to that Web site

and access information directly about any of the variety of services

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that people with disabilities and their family members would need

to access, including Social Security programs, information about job

opportunities and job accommodations, about accessible transportation and accessible housing, which continues to be a major challenge for people with disabilities. Emergency preparedness has become increasingly more important in recent years, and the opportunities for expanding educational programs and services for people

with disabilities is particularly emphasized in the Individuals With

Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], which Congresswoman Watson

alluded to.

Under the President’s administration, grants and programs have received an increase of more than $3.7 billion in annual funding,

and the President has requested an additional billion dollars in

funding for the IDEA in fiscal year 2005. We are working very

closely to also provide opportunities and mesh very well the President’s No Child Left Behind Act in elementary and secondary ed

with the IDEA, which is special education programs and services,

making sure that children with disabilities are fully integrated and

provided the educational services and benefits they need to participate in the regular classroom environment with their peers without

disabilities, which is a very important aspect.

Now, integrating Americans with disabilities into the work force

is a profound challenge. The Department of Education is working

with its sister partners at Labor, HHS, HUD and all of the other

Federal agencies to increase the employment opportunities for people with disabilities, because people with disabilities are underemployed at higher rates than any other class of people in America.

The research shows it is between 50 and 70 percent. And we know

from our basic research that has been conducted with our partners

in both the public and private sector, including the National Organization on Disability, that these rates consist primarily because of

attitudinal barriers toward the abilities of people with disabilities.

The Rehabilitation Services Administration in the Department of

Education is focused primarily on helping people with disabilities

obtain the skills, knowledge and experience they need to fully integrate into every aspect of society, including employment. Last year,

the Rehabilitation Services Administration, with its State partners,

was successful in finding fully integrated, gainful employment for

more than 223,000 people last year.

This year, we will serve in special education at least 6.5 million

young people with disabilities in this country. All of this serves toward our greatest implementation, which is making sure that communities of individuals with disabilities have accessibility to the

programs and services they need to live independent, fully productive lives in the communities of their choice.

Transportation, as the Congresswoman mentioned to you, is one

of the most key components of accessibility and access, including

employment and basic enjoyment for people with disabilities.

In February of this year, the President challenged, through an

Executive order, all of his Federal agencies to work together to figure out what the Federal barriers are that currently exist in the

systems and programs posing impeded access to basic integrated

transportation services for people with disabilities. All of the Federal agencies under the New Freedom Initiative today are working

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through plans to make Federal funding and remove Federal barriers in transportation services for people with disabilities. This is

a model that we have at the Federal level to show how well State

and local entities can provide programs and services for their children, youth and adults with disabilities.

The NFI is designed to realize a plan for equal access and full

participation in American society for individuals with disabilities,

and that plan is for now and also for the future. We at the Department of Education look forward to working with our sister agencies

and working even more closely on collaboration so that we remove

all of the barriers that are posed for people with disabilities in

American society.

Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Secretary Justesen. We appreciate you

being with us today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Justesen follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Mr. Young.

Mr. YOUNG. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department of Health and Human Services programs for people with disabilities.

This is an issue that President Bush took on early and vigorously. In February 2001, he announced the New Freedom Initiative, building on the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act.

HHS plays a major role in addressing the New Freedom Initiative. Our programs reflect a fundamental commitment to promote

independence and quality of life, to enable people with disabilities

to receive services in the most integrated settings, and so to support people with disabilities in their efforts to work.

Americans with disabilities are part of the population served by

all HHS programs; however, I will highlight here the larger HHS

programs focused on serving people with disabilities.

Dependable, high-quality health care is a critical need. Approximately 8 million people with disabilities qualify for Medicaid on the

basis of the SSI financial and disability criteria. Medicare also provides health coverage for individuals who receive Social Security

disability insurance. Approximately 6.4 million people under age 65

receive Medicare on the basis of disability.

The Medicaid program is by far the largest public payer of longterm support for people with disabilities. In 2003 Medicaid, paid

$45 billion for nursing home services, $11 billion for institutional

settings for people with mental retardation and $28 billion for community support.

Medicaid law requires States to offer nursing home care, but it

allows States the option to provide community-based services. In

1990, Medicaid spending for community care represented 14 percent of Medicaid long-term care spending; in 2003, it was 33 percent. Over the past 3 years HHS has awarded approximately $121

million in grants to States to influence and accelerate the shift.

The Real Choice Systems Change grant program funds States and

other eligible entities to make systems changes that enable individuals with disabilities to live in the most integrated settings possible, to exercise meaningful choices about their lives, and to obtain

quality services. We will be awarding another $31 million this year.

One of the most promising developments is consumer-directed

models of care. The best known model of Medicaid consumer-directed care is the cash and counseling program, which is designed

and supported by HHS and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Under this program and others like it, people who use Medicaid

personal assistance are offered individual budgets rather than specific services. Satisfaction and quality are high, and there is less

reliance on nursing home services. HHS promotes the use of these

models through Medicaid Independence Plus Waivers and the LIFE

Accounts Initiative included in the President’s 2005 budget.

It has been estimated that the value of the free care provided by

informal caregivers exceeds $257 billion annually. HHS supports

caregivers with initiatives such as the Administration on Aging’s

National Family Caregivers Support Program, which provided $159

million this year in grants for information, counseling, training,

respite care and supplemental services to over 500,000 caregivers.

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When formal services are needed, it is critical that we have in

place a committed work force to provide high-quality services. We

address the issue with $12 million in States to improve the recruitment, training, support and retention of workers with an emphasis

on the provision of a health care benefit for direct service workers.

An important component of the President’s New Freedom Initiative is doing everything possible to help people with disabilities to

work. We work closely with our partners to effectively advance the

goals of the Ticket-to-Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act

of 1999, which encourages people with disabilities to work, but to

work without fear of losing eligibility under Medicare, Medicaid

and similar health benefits. To date, we have awarded $57 million

in Medicaid infrastructure grants to 42 States and the District of

Columbia to help people with disabilities find and keep work without losing their health benefits.

The Administration on Developmental Disabilities provided over $140 million in grants last year to assist the Nation’s nearly 4 million people with developmental disabilities. Support for young children with disabilities and their family members is also important.

The Maternal and Child Health program provides funds to States

to improve the health of children with special health care needs

and their families. In 2004, approximately $200 million of this Federal investment is being allocated to community-based care for the

estimated 18 million children with special health needs.

The HHS Office on Disability, created in 2002, coordinates Department initiatives and supports the ‘‘I Can Do It—You Can Do

It’’ physical fitness program, providing mentors for children and

youth with disabilities, as well as other programs for people with

disabilities.

Many of the programs I have talked about today had their roots

decades ago. Although we continue to improve and modernize them

as individual needs and values change, working with our State and

local partners and, most importantly, working with people with disabilities and their families, we have come a long way. But as President Bush has stated, there is much more to do.

We at HHS are firmly committed to meeting the President’s challenge, and I am happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Young follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Mr. Young. I understand that Mr.

Cummings is your Congressman, and I did not know if he had any

comments he would like to make.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Young, I want to welcome you and it is good to see you. Mr.

Chairman, if I may do my opening statement very briefly, is that

OK?

Mr. BURTON. Sure.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding

this important hearing which will offer us greater insight into the

status of our disabled citizens, as well as present us with an opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of disability laws that affect these

individuals.

Over 89 million people living in the United States have some

form of mental or physical disability. Yet, of these 89 million people, an overwhelming number of disabled persons are still not enjoying equal protection under the law.

While I acknowledge the progress engendered by legislation such

as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, I still believe that more can be and must be accomplished. Men like Robert David Hall and my colleague, the

Honorable James R. Langevin of Rhode Island, both of whom became physically disabled after tragic accidents and who will testify

before us today, are inspirations to all Americans, as they are fighting the good fight for health care initiatives and legislation that

will change the way we deal with disability in these United States.

This fight is no doubt a difficult one. Recent surveys indicate

many Americans feel that they are not winning it. Although the

Rehabilitation Act, ADA, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, and other legislation were enacted to provide our

disabled citizens with legal protection to prohibit discrimination

and denial of benefits, as well as guaranteed access to any public

place and equal education, they are still in many instances losing

the battle.

In the 2004 Harris survey of ADA, 64 percent of the people surveyed said the ADA has made no difference in their lives, compared

to 58 percent in the year 2000. This is a drop in the level of confidence in the law specifically drafted to protect and support this

Nation’s disabled persons. Even more disconcerting is that costs

were reported as the main reason why disabled persons did not

pursue the needed health care, technologies and devices that could

be helpful to them as they integrate into mainstream society. Congress must make certain this trend is reversed.

The Federal Government and nongovernmental organizations

must work together to expand the participation and contributions

of the disabled population by putting into place effective processes

and legislation that afford them greater access and better representation in American society.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the true disability is not the physical or

mental challenge that many of these citizens face, but rather the

Nation’s inability to provide proper protection that ensures the

highest quality of life for all.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I would like to

especially recognize one of my constituents who I am extremely

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proud of, Dr. Don Young, who is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of

Planning and Evaluation of the Department of Health and Human

Services.

And I thank you, Dr. Young, for your leadership and all that you

do to enhance people’s lives every day.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your courtesy and I would yield

back.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. I thank you Congressman Cummings.

You heard the discussion that we had with our colleague who

was the first panelist. Have any of the agencies of government, to

your knowledge, given any consideration to tax incentives, like we

were talking about, for the private sector to hire and train those

with disabilities who are unemployed?

I mean, I understand the programs that you alluded to, both of

you, that are very beneficial and the health problems that are connected, the health care cost problems with Medicare and Medicaid,

but if we can get more of these people gainfully employed through

the private sector, we might find that some of them will get coverage from their employers that would help take care of some of

the benefits that are necessary.

So have any of the agencies, Health and Human Services or the

Department of Education, given any thought to suggesting legislation that we create tax incentives for the private sector?

Mr. YOUNG. I am not aware that we have. It would not necessarily be a question that would be addressed to HHS. I certainly

agree though that finding some way to assure that people who

want to work are given the help they need so that they can find

the job they need and go to work.

Mr. JUSTESEN. Congressman, directly to answer your question, it

is an issue of some intellectual debate among some of the agencies,

particularly the Department of Labor’s newly created Office of Disability Employment Policy, that—some of my colleagues I believe

are in the audience here, and there has been some discussion with

the Rehab Services Administration of the Department of Education

about what it is that we can do to address the existing barriers—

those being, among other things, tax incentives for specifically hiring people with disabilities.

It is still under debate, but I do want to point out that the Americans with Disabilities Act, under Titles I and II—Title I being employment, II, State and local government programs and services—

both cover employment aspects, and Title I, specifically with respect to the private sector of employment, does provide tax incentives, both deductions and credits, for making the buildings and facilities and job accommodations more affordable to the private business sector.

There is a cap on those amounts of deduction/credit depending on

what it is that is used to provide either a more accessible work environment or providing specific job accommodations for those individuals with disabilities who would be employed.

But I think your question is most specifically with respect to hiring people with disabilities regardless of their need for accessible

accommodations or job accommodations. And that is an issue that

a number of us have discussed in terms of how we can formulate

proposals. And we are at the very initial stages of being able to do

that and would need a little bit more discussion among the agencies.

Mr. BURTON. Let me just say that I think that kind of a program,

probably short term and long term, would pay for itself. If you give

a tax incentive to get somebody who is unemployed the skills necessary to perform a task and they become a taxpayer instead of a

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tax recipient, then I think it has to have a positive impact both on

the individual and the company and on the government.

The tax credit that you are giving would take money out of the

Treasury in the short run, but if the employee starts paying taxes,

you are going to get it back in the long run. And it just seems to

me that would be one of the things that we ought to take a look

at.

I understand that—did you say Title II of the Americans with

Disabilities Act talked about giving incentives for putting in facilities that will make it accessible for Americans with disabilities?

But that does not solve the problem of the training that might be

necessary for them to do a job, and that might be something that

we can add as an adjunct to the Americans with Disabilities Act

that would be very favorably received by the private sector as well

as the government.

And toward that end, I wish you might take a hard look at it and

maybe work with us and our colleagues who just testified, along

with Ms. Watson and myself, to see if we could come up with a legislative proposal that would do just that.

Mr. JUSTESEN. Well, I think we look in order to doing that. If I

may, the Rehabilitation Services Administration is making a great

deal of investments in directly providing training and gainful employment preparation for individuals with disabilities, and that is

a State and Federal partnership. And that is a strong foundation

for us to build on what you are suggesting.

Mr. BURTON. Well, I understand, but that is a government-subsidized program. And what I am saying is if you give a tax incentive to the private sector, what you are doing is you are giving

them a break to train these people. It isn’t costing the government

anything other than a tax deduction, and the government is going

to get that back when these people become taxpayers and gainfully

employed. So rather than have another government program that

we create that just spends money, I would rather do it just the opposite. And that is why I would like for to you to look at this as

an additional approach.

Ms. Watson.

Ms. WATSON. I just wanted to query one thing that you said. The

Federal and State partnership works through what? State government through the Department of Education training? How is it facilitated?

Mr. JUSTESEN. Question, Congresswoman. With respect to vocational rehabilitation services?

Ms. WATSON. The training of the individual.

Mr. JUSTESEN. The rehabilitation services of the Department of

Education is a State and Federal partnership. It has a very long

history, over 80 years.

Ms. WATSON. Yes, I know, but it goes through the State educational system?

Mr. JUSTESEN. Well, it goes through the State vocational rehabilitation agency. Sometimes they are within the State Departments of Education, other times State Departments of Labor or

Health and Human Services, depending on the State.

Ms. WATSON. They have vocational programs, but you are talking

about vocational programs through which they train the disabled?

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Mr. JUSTESEN. They are—yes.

Ms. WATSON. For vocational——

Mr. JUSTESEN. For people with disabilities for vocational rehabilitation services. And this is a longtime partnership between Federal and State entities. Each State has chosen which State office

is the lead agency in a sense in a given State. Some States it is

mostly Departments of Labor or Education. But there are others

HHS or whatever appropriate State agency has chosen to administer the rehabilitation vocational program.

Ms. WATSON. I think in my State, California—and I’m going to

have my staff look it up—it is through the Department of Rehab.

And the Department of Rehab has these programs. I think we need

to do an assessment to see if they are really reaching out to the

broad spectrum of the disabled; mentally disabled as well.

Mr. JUSTESEN. Well, people with psychiatric disabilities are the

largest category of unemployed people who have disabilities in

America. And it is a challenge for us, and we look forward to continuing to help State VR agencies be more efficient and more effective than even they are today. And that is a priority of ours in the

Department of Education.

Ms. WATSON. I kind of like the proposal that the Chair is putting

out there, because I was just reading something about our budget

here, and what departments were cut? Department of Education,

the Department of Rehabilitation, and so on.

So there are many, many people who won’t get served. If there

is a tax incentive, then maybe the private sector can take over, because these are kind of like entitlement programs. And I think that

we need to try other ways of funding, because they are the first

ones that get cut.

Mr. JUSTESEN. Well, Congresswoman, I look forward to taking

back to Secretary Paige your challenge to us to provide technical

assistance to the committee to improve the employment rates for

people like myself with disabilities.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much. I don’t have any further

questions, but I do appreciate your testimony. It is good to have

you back, and nice to have you with us. Mr. Young and I’m sure

Mr. Cummings appreciates you being here as well.

Our next panel consists of Mr. Alan Reich, he is president of the

National Organization on Disability; Mr. Robert David Hall, he is

the actor on CSI, Crime Scene Investigation, which is a very popular TV show, as everybody knows; Dr. Peter Blanck, is a professor

of law at the University of Iowa College of Law, he is the director

of the Law, Health Policy and Disability Center there; and Mr.

John Register, he is the manager of the Paralympic Academy, U.S.

Paralympics, U.S. Olympic Committee. Appreciate you all being

here.

Please raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. BURTON. I think we will just go right down the line there,

I think we will start from the right and go to the left. Mr. Reich.

And if you could, since we have four panelists, keep your statements as close to 5 minutes as possible so we can have question

and answer with you.

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STATEMENTS OF ALAN A. REICH, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION ON DISABILITY; ROBERT DAVID HALL, ACTOR,

CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION, DOUBLE AMPUTEE;

PETER BLANCK, CHARLES M. AND MARION KIERSCHT PROFESSOR OF LAW, DIRECTOR, LAW, HEALTH POLICY & DISABILITY CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA COLLEGE OF LAW;

AND JOHN REGISTER, MANAGER, PARALYMPIC ACADEMY,

U.S. PARALYMPICS, U.S. OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

Mr. REICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to your

committee on human rights and wellness for providing this important focus on our release today of the fourth NOD/Harris Survey

of Americans with Disabilities.

In the last 12 years, we have been doing surveys to understand

the status of people with disabilities in our country and how we are

doing in comparison with counterparts without disabilities, and the

picture that emerges today is one of continuing concern and continuing disparity between the situation of our 54 million Americans

with disabilities and other Americans.

I am Alan Reich, president of the National Organization on Disability. I founded NOD in 1982, having joined the disability community two decades earlier when I broke my neck in a diving accident. People with disabilities want to participate and contribute to

society, to work, support our families, pay taxes, contribute to the

economy, and share in America’s blessings and opportunities, just

like everyone else. To us this means closing the gaps in the levels

of participation between people with and without disabilities in employment, education, community life, voting, religious worship,

transportation, housing, health care. Closing these gaps is America’s disability agenda.

In the mid-1980’s, while the Congress was preparing the Americans with Disabilities Act, we began surveying to identify and

quantify these gaps and to report to the Nation on these critical

issues. We have commissioned the Louis Harris organization now

actually four times to conduct national surveys to measure and report on these gaps. These surveys have helped the disability community, legislators, officials of all levels, the media, the business

community and other Americans understand the problems and opportunities for action.

So who are we, the 54 million citizens with disabilities? After all,

you are taking a snapshot today. And how are we doing compared

to other Americans?

This report identifies and defines the challenges our minority

faces in terms of the gaps in major life areas. The survey results

show that in 2004, these gaps are wide. We remain pervasively disadvantaged in 10 key indicator areas.

In employment, only a third of people with disabilities of working

age are employed full or part time, compared to more than threequarters of those without disabilities; 35 percent versus 78 percent.

In education, 21 percent of people with disabilities have received

less than a high school education, compared with only 11 percent

of those without disabilities.

Socializing. People with disabilities socialize less frequently with

close friends, relatives or neighbors; 79 percent versus 89 percent.

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Income. People with disabilities are far more likely to have a

household income of $15,000 or less; 26 percent versus 9 percent.

Think of it, a household income of $15,000 a year.

Religious worship, 49 percent of people with disabilities go to a

place of worship at least once a month compared with 57 percent

of those without disabilities.

And entertainment. People with disabilities are less likely to go

out to a restaurant, for example, at least twice a month; 66 percent

versus 73 percent.

Political participation. This was based on our 2000 survey. People with disabilities are less likely to be registered to vote; 62 percent versus 78 percent.

Transportation. People with disabilities are twice as likely as

those without disabilities to consider inadequate transportation a

problem; 31 percent versus 13 percent.

Health care, also egregious. People with disabilities are more

than twice as likely to have gone without needed medical care at

least once in the past year; 18 percent versus 7 percent.

Life satisfaction. Not surprisingly, in light of these other gaps,

people with disabilities are much less likely to say they are very

satisfied with life in general; 34 percent versus 61 percent.

And I might add another that we have added since we did this

survey 4 years ago, and that is emergency preparedness. Shortly

after September 11 we surveyed people with disabilities and found

that our population is less prepared, more concerned and more anxious than the nondisabled.

Overall, this is a sorry picture. America can do better. We must

do better. There are glimmerings of hope. Over the past 18 years,

several gaps have closed, notably employment, education, income,

eating out at a restaurant. In the past 4 years, discrimination toward people with disabilities in the workplace has decreased markedly, undoubtedly as a result of the Americans with Disabilities

Act. However, there is still a long way to go before we can say that

people with disabilities have the same opportunities to contribute

to and participate in American life than other citizens do.

Closing these gaps as reported in today’s Harris survey is our

goal, and it must be America’s goal, too. I respectfully request, Mr.

Chairman, that the presentation of the survey by Harris chairman

Humphrey Taylor, who is here with us today and that he presented

earlier at the National Press Club, be appended to my remarks and

placed in the record.

Mr. BURTON. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. REICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My distinguished colleagues on the panel will comment on the implications

of the Harris survey findings.

NOD board member Robert David Hall is known to America as

a lead member of the Nation’s top-rated television show, CSI:

Crime Scene Investigation. David, who is a double amputee, has

traveled from Hollywood to appear before you today, and we are

grateful to him.

He will be followed by Peter Blanck, also a member of the board

of directors of the National Organization on Disability, and a professor at the University of Iowa law school, as well as a director

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of its disability law center. He has published and spoken widely on

the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to commend you and the

House Government Reform Subcommittee on Human Rights and

Wellness for recognizing the 54 million Americans with disabilities

who are disadvantaged and discriminated against. You are performing a vital service by placing disabilities squarely on the

human rights agenda. As I had the opportunity to point out recently in testimony before Congressman Tom Lantos’ Human

Rights Caucus, citizens with disabilities, like our half-billion counterparts worldwide, are the poorest, least educated, and the most

discriminated against people on our planet. Is this not a human

rights disgrace? We want to participate fully and contribute to society just like everyone else. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony and will continue to work to see if we can’t make things a

heck of a lot better than they are right now.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Reich follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. Mr. Register.

Mr. REGISTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Congresswoman

Watson. It is great to see you again. Good afternoon, and thank

you for this time to address you today.

My name is John Register, and I am the director of the

Paralympic Academy, a national outreach program that enables

children with physical disabilities to become more active in life.

Before I lost my leg in a freak hurdling accident, I was a threetime All American and a graduate of the University of Arkansas.

I twice went to the Olympic trials. In 1988, I went as a 110-meter

high hurdler; and in 1992, I went as a 400-meter hurdler. I was

also a soldier in the U.S. Army.

In 1988, I went through with the hurdle, and I dislocated my

knee and severed my artery, and at that time had to really look

at life from a different point of view, from a different perspective,

and challenge some of the attitudes that I had myself.

In the hospital room I remember one of the things I remembered

was my wife and understanding how important it was for me to

think of who I was at that moment in time. Was I still a husband?

Was I still a father? Was I still a son to my dad? Was I still a son

to my own mother? And most importantly, as a soldier in the U.S.

Army, was I still going to be gainfully employed?

And some of the things I was thinking about really caused an impact on my life, and I began to think of some of the outlooks that

we see. And I think what I was thinking about then and what I

think about now is of the testimony that we have heard. It looks

like a dismal picture, and 75 percent of children with physical disabilities in the United States do not participate in physical education programs at school or health and wellness programs in their

communities. Seventy-five percent of people with disabilities of

working age are unemployed, as we have heard. And 56 percent of

people with disabilities get no physical activity whatsoever.

And per capita health care costs are four times greater for people

with disabilities than for those without. People with disabilities

have high rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes, depression,

high blood pressure and obesity.

When I was a long jumper at the University of Arkansas and

with one leg taking the silver medal, I jumped the sum of a twolane highway, 27 feet. With one leg, taking the silver medal at the

Paralympic Games, I jumped half that distance. So I guess half a

leg, half the distance.

I have seen personally the impact on health and wellness and

how that transcends to other aspects of life. The attitudinal issues

regarding disability are still a major barrier to change. As a former

Olympic-level athlete and current Paralympic athlete, I have seen

the benefits of the Olympic and Paralympic programs and their

positive impact on attitudinal barriers. We must remove the barriers to independent living, community integration and employment.

For example, Federal disability benefits programs assume a person’s ability to return to work or live independently is limited. And

this is in my situation. I was on my way to officer candidate school

and had to stop my progression to be a lifer in the U.S. Army beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:10 Jan 05, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00092 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cause of my physical limitation, partly because of governmental

and partly because of my own limitations I was placing on myself.

But I think we see with the Paralympic movement how great

one’s ability can be, as testimony is heard today. The U.S. Olympic

Committee, through its Paralympic Division, is committed to addressing quality-of-life issues for people with disabilities through

the Paralympic program. As a program director, I understand the

role that the U.S. Olympic Committee can play in addressing

health and wellness issues and attitudinal barriers.

The USOC is working with community-based organizations to deliver programs that expand participation by people with disabilities

in health and wellness programs and increase awareness and resources for these programs. This program is known as the

Paralympic Academy, and the key objectives of the Paralympic

Academy are to enhance and increase opportunities for people with

disabilities, develop a national message concerning persons with

disabilities, and provide incentives and recognition for individuals

and programs that have impact on all 50 States.

It provides a cost-effective preventive health and wellness program in the 50 States, and we will honor in this year and every

year subsequently a select group of children with physical disabilities and coaches from all 50 States at the National Paralympic

Academy. This year we are selecting six children, our pilot program, that will attend the games in Athens, Greece, and we will

be leaving on September 14th to attend those games. Truly that

will inspire those children once they see that.

The U.S. Olympic Committee would like to become a stronger

partner in developing and implementing cohesive programs with

the Congress, Federal agencies and the White House; to secure legislative amendments and ideas to fund a research study quantifying how involvement in health and wellness programs can impact

the achievement levels in children with physical disabilities; engage congressional leadership in supporting adapt sports programs

in your districts; and reorganizing and creating awareness of constituents who are delivering and participating in the health and

wellness programs.

So today, I thank you very much for this opportunity to testify

before your subcommittee. The U.S. Olympic Committee looks forward to working with Congress to expand the participation and

contribution of people with disabilities in this country. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Register follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. How far did you say you could go with just one?

Mr. REGISTER. One leg, I jumped 18 feet, 4 inches.

Mr. BURTON. That is pretty good.

Mr. REGISTER. I’m that one-legged man in that butt-kicking contest.

Mr. BURTON. It is a heck of a lot further than I can, and I don’t

have those limitations. But then I am only 29 years old.

Mr. Hall, when I was 20 years old, I sent a picture of myself to

Walt Disney Studios, and they haven’t responded. Could you call

them?

Mr. HALL. I’ll talk to Walt. Oops.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Hall, you are recognized.

Mr. HALL. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Representative

Burton, Chairperson Burton, and Ms. Watson. I knew you for so

many years as Senator Watson, it’s a great honor to speak to you

as Representative Watson, so thank you.

I am Robert David Hall, and you have heard that I play Dr. Robbins on CSI. More importantly to these proceedings, I’m here as a

new board member of the National Organization on Disability, and

I guess most importantly I’m one of the 54 million Americans with

a disability.

And with two legs and a pole, I only went 13 feet, so I’m looking

at this man in awe.

It’s an honor to speak before you today. I grew up here in Washington, and it is very nice to come home.

I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to draw attention to

the National Organization on Disability/Harris Survey of Americans with Disabilities. To many of us who identify ourselves as people with disabilities, the NOD/Harris survey is the gold standard

of surveys. I believe it is an accurate snapshot of what it is like

to live as a disabled.

Now, I’m not a statistician or professor or pollster, but I have

learned over the years from the various committees and groups

that I belong to that numbers and statistics are important. We

have to measure because that is what dictates what action is taken

on behalf of any group.

And while others joining me today—and Alan—can speak a little

bit more accurately on the specifics of this very important survey,

I would like to speak briefly about my experience as a disability advocate and hands-on volunteer with burn victims and recent amputees.

I’d like to paint a picture of myself, of course, as a selfless humanitarian, but the truth is whatever advocacy or volunteer work

I have been involved in has given me back far more than I have

ever invested. Twenty-six years ago I was badly burned when an

18-wheel truck ran over my car on a California freeway. My gas

tank exploded, and I was burned over 65 percent of my body. I

spent months in a hospital burn ward, and I had both my legs amputated.

Now, following that trauma, I concluded that I am not exceptionally brave, but I am ambitious. I wanted a life, and as an actor

once told me, if you are going to pray for something, be specific.

Use lots of adjectives. I wanted not an average life, but something

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out of the ordinary. I wanted to succeed, and I didn’t want disability or prejudice to stand in my way.

Some people pitied me, and some helped me, especially my family and friends. I also helped myself quite a bit. I learned to use

assistive technology, prosthetic limbs, hand controls for my car. I

reentered the work force, and I began to face certain obstacles that

many people with disabilities encounter. I am a college graduate,

by the way, as are many people with disabilities. I faced accessibility issues, health care concerns big time, and attitudinal barriers.

That was foremost among them.

I believe I have overcome many of these challenges, but I didn’t

do it alone. Along the way many other people with disabilities have

fought long and hard to improve life for their peers. From my own

experience, one thing I know very well is the cost of health care

with disabilities and how particularly important good health care

is to successfully stabilizing a disability so a person can make the

most out of their life.

This is why one section of the NOD/Harris Survey of Americans

With Disabilities that is being released today, the section on health

care, causes me some particular concern for our community. Twenty-six percent of people with disabilities, as you have heard already, report not filling a prescription in the last year due to cost.

Twenty-eight percent report putting off needed health care last

year due to cost. Cost has also caused 23 percent of people with

disabilities to bypass a doctor’s recommendations, compared to only

9 percent of the nondisabled population. About a tenth of people

with disabilities say they went without needed physical or speech

therapy or mental health service last year.

It is no surprise, then, that the survey also finds people with disabilities have a greater fear of losing their independence. Thirtyfour percent fear having to go into a nursing home. I know many

folks who know that it is cheaper to have an attendant than to go

into a nursing home. About half all Americans with disabilities fear

they will not be able to take care of themselves or will become a

burden to their families. That’s twice as great a rate of concern as

for other Americans.

People with disabilities are more worried about losing their

health insurance. Now, I’m very aware—I serve on a couple of

boards for the Screen Actors Guild—the cost of health care is a

problem to anybody in this Nation of ours. It is especially of concern to people with disabilities.

The more severe the disability, the more intense the concern is.

For people with severe disabilities, especially those who are not

independently wealthy, independence is a tenuous asset if it has

not already been lost. The Supreme Court’s Olmstead Commission,

which had its fifth anniversary this Tuesday, and President Bush’s

Olmstead order have helped us. These orders built on the rights

that were secured by the Americans with Disabilities Act passed by

President Bush, Senior, 14 years ago. And this body, I should say,

not by President Bush.

The ADA has been a milestone piece of legislation bringing national attention to our concerns. And I commend all the legislators

and activists who made it possible, who made possible its enactment and its enforcement.

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NOD, by the way, currently supports another piece of legislation

that is pending: The Medicaid Community Attendant Services and

Support Act, which I know you are aware of, MiCASSA. We believe

that it will do much more to ensure freedom for Americans with

disabilities and their families, and I hope these NOD/Harris survey

findings will help all of our legislators to understand how important this issue is for those of us who are Americans with disabilities.

When I speak or visit with people that are newly disabled, who

had have just joined the disability community, I become reenergized, and I had also become reconcerned—on a recent visit with

injured soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, I was very pleased to see

that these young men are receiving first-class medical care, and

they are wearing the same expensive electronic prosthetics that I

am, and I hope you are, too. Their spirit, by and large, is extremely

positive, and our country is standing by these soldiers by providing

them with the assistive technologies that is going to help them

maximize their potential.

But I am also aware that they have a different life ahead of

them. Whether you are a decorated war veteran or just an average

citizen with a disability, you have a gauntlet to run, and as the

Harris survey shows, for many, cost comes between them and the

technologies they need. The benefits of assistive technology will not

be fully realized as long as cost is a factor keeping people with disabilities from the technologies and devices that will help them lead

fuller lives.

And then, of course, depending on the severity and time of disability, one has some doors open, and certain other doors close.

This NOD/Harris survey does a good job of pointing out the societal

problems and highlights the real gaps we face as disabled citizens.

And in fairness—I want to keep this close to the 5 minutes that

Representative Burton asked—whether we are labeled severely,

moderately, or slightly disabled, no matter what our mental, physical, sensory or psychiatric disability may be, the bottom line, for

me anyway, is that there remains discrimination against people

who are perceived to be different.

I became involved in disability advocacy for several reasons. I am

a person with disability. I faced other obstacles pursuing my career

by—mainly because I think it is a colossal waste to exclude people

from contributing to society based on their difference. I believe that

with all my heart.

I mentioned earlier that I grew up in D.C. I’m a baseball fan. I’ve

got a Washington Senators hat from 1959 on my bookshelf. I pray

you will get a team soon. I’d like it in the inner city, but just have

a Washington Senators. The time I left was the year Calvin Griffith took them to Minnesota, so this town has a big part of my soul.

I love baseball because it is a lot like life. They tend to do things

the way they have always done them, and they revere tradition.

In his wonderful book, Moneyball, the author Michael Lewis

talks about the great unorthodox style used by Oakland Athletics

general manager Billy Beane. Rather than relying strictly on oldschool scouting reports and general overall physical impressions,

Billy Beane selects his ballplayers on the basis of two very specific

statistical events. It’s called sabermetrics, and they want two

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things out of their ballplayers. Do you get on base? Can you get

people home who are there on base? And he doesn’t look for his talent the traditional way. You have to do those two things to be a

ballplayer on the Oakland A’s. You must perform this way.

The author Michael Lewis writes: The inability to envision a certain kind of person doing a certain kind of thing because you have

never seen someone who looks like him do it before is not just a

vice. It’s a luxury. What begins as a failure of the imagination ends

as a market inefficiency: When you rule out an entire class of people from doing a job simply by their appearance, you are less likely

to find the best person for the job.

And I believe that. You are less likely to find the best person for

the job. I’m playing the coroner on CSI, the No. 1 show around the

world, because a couple of enlightened producers and one network

executive saw past my disability and focused on my skills as an

actor. In Hollywood when I started, they were afraid disabled people would slow the production down. That they couldn’t learn their

lines, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it is a silly business to get into

unless you are an actor, unless you really love it and are willing

to jump off a cliff.

This issue is so much bigger than my minuscule problems. The

NOD/Harris survey indicates there is a large gap in employment

between college graduates who do and do not have disabilities. I

think that is a failure of imagination. But I think a greater number

of future doctors, lawyers, CEOs, and leaders of our country can

and must come from the ranks of Americans with disabilities. Hiring and promoting people with disabilities is not just the right

thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do, and it’s good business.

I’m aware that change takes time. I’m also aware that great

things start in rooms just like these, and I thank you so much for

your time.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you for that testimony. It is very, very effective and helpful.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. I might take issue with one thing you said. You

said that we ought to get the Washington Senators back. One of

the reasons that we lost the Washington Senators is because there

is only 100 of them. There are 435 of us. It should be called the

‘‘Washington Representatives.’’

Mr. HALL. Well, they were called the Nationals at one time, so

maybe we can fix that.

Mr. BURTON. Maybe we can fix this.

Mr. Blanck.

Mr. BLANCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the honor to address

this committee. And I will be brief.

As a professor, I do—I teach sometimes 70 law students in a

course on Federal disability law every year, and we get these

course evaluations. And I got one back that said: If I had 1 hour

to live, I would spend it in your class. Feeling proud about that,

I took it home to my wife, and she said, what is that asterisk that

I see over here? And in big print it said: Because, Professor Blanck,

your class seems like an eternity.

So I will be brief, unlike my usual style.

I want to make two central points today among the many that

have been talked about today, and they focus on meaningful access

to employment, what we mean by that, and economic independence

for people with disabilities, both areas that are studied in the Harris poll, both areas in which I have done some work and others

have as well. So I won’t belabor that point. But I wanted to give

you highlights of this area.

I think it is very relevant to the tax discussion we were having

earlier. As you know, we now have in place in a comprehensive

work force system which the Department of Labor oversees, the

Employment and Training Administration oversees, and a core

component of that system is what is called the one-stop centers.

And I want to report to you today some encouraging news from the

Harris poll about those one-stop centers.

In fact, almost half of the people polled with disabilities now report being aware of those one-stop centers and are beginning to use

them. This is a particularly encouraging result, particularly given

the high rates of unemployment we have been talking about and

the need to present opportunities for the many, many qualified individuals with disabilities who want to work.

There are other important things going on in the Department of

Labor. For example, in partnership with the Social Security Administration, they now have a Disability Program Navigator individual

who creates these links among agencies for persons with disabilities to get meaningful employment. And the Harris poll, again,

shows that expanding these opportunities, these meaningful opportunities, for individuals to have work, to train, to engage with employers is really needed.

Now, I’m skipping over some of my remarks, but this tax area

that you mentioned is crucial. It is a central area for enhancing the

employment and the integration into life for persons with disabilities, and the 2004 Harris poll unfortunately finds that only 1 in

10 people use these Federal tax credits. So it is very underused. It

can go to workplace accommodations. It can go to helping small

employers hire persons with disabilities. It can go to assisting and

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getting personal assistant services. So we have to do a better job

of thinking about tax policy in this regard.

Our center in Iowa has been very fortunate because we have received a grant from NIDRR in the U.S. Department of Education

to start an aggressive campaign called TAX FACTS, and we are

partnering with HHS and the IRS to basically improve the financial education of persons with disabilities and their families and

their employers.

Now, that goes to the second area which I will touch upon briefly. What do we mean by this area of economic independence? Well,

the reality is you can have all the tax credits you want, but if folks

are earning $6,000 a year or $12,000 a year, just above the poverty

level, how are they going to live? What is the incentive really to

go off Federal programs?

So what our center and others have done at NOD is we have to

start thinking about how people with disabilities can accumulate

assets. We know that there is a strong program for people in poverty in place, the AFIA Act of 1998, which is financial education

and the individual development accounts which you guys are familiar with. Yet when we studied this IDA program in the NOD/Harris poll, only 6 percent of people with disabilities report having an

IDA, and that is really a shame and astounding, because we know

on the TANF rolls, the welfare programs, over 50 percent of people

who are on those rolls either have a disability or have a family

member with a disability.

And this lack of financial education and tax savviness leads to

disparities in banking relationships, in the ability to buy stocks

and bonds, in homeownership. Even though people with disabilities

own homes, particularly at older ages, at relatively high rates,

again the Harris poll shows there are terrific disparities in people

claiming what every American who owns a home claims, and that

is the mortgage deduction credit.

So there needs to be awareness and education about the tax programs out there, and I believe that the Harris poll and studies like

it go a long way toward helping improve the dialog about what we

mean by economic independence and meaningful employment. And

I believe that more facts-based evidence is required, as Mr. Hall

and Mr. Reich have said, to measure the outcomes of these programs on the lives of persons with disabilities in America.

And I am under my time, so I will be very unprofessorial and

conclude there. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much, Doctor. We appreciate your

comments.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blanck follows:]

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Mr. BURTON. One thing you mentioned in your statement is a

number of government agencies, Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and others, that can and do help in some

of these areas. You did not mention the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Has anybody thought about talking to the Chamber of Commerce that represents business and industry all across this country

about the possibility of tax incentives for them to hire the disabled

and get the Chamber behind this sort of thing? Because the Chamber is a very powerful lobby here in Washington and in the States,

and it seems to me that in addition to getting governmental entities like Health and Human Services and the Department of Education interested in positive changes, getting the Chamber involved

would be very positive.

And I really believe that they would buy into this sort of thing,

because they and the people that they represent realize the benefit

of tax credits. I want to tell you, if you want to talk to businessman—and I was one once a long time ago—when you start talking

about a way to get a good employee and get a tax break at the

same time, I would jump all over that. I think most business and

industry people would. And if your organizations would reach out

to the Chamber of Commerce and talk to them about it, it might

be a very positive thing and have a positive result. And I would be

very happy, and I think Ms. Watson would probably as well, to

work with you toward that goal.

Mr. BLANCK. If I may respond to that briefly. We have, in fact,

worked with the Chamber, and I have spoken there. In Iowa we

have worked with the legislature to pass a tax credit for small

businesses to hire employees with disabilities, and the legislature

set aside a subsidy of half a million dollars or so. Iowa is relatively

small compared to some of your States. And we’re excited about

that we need your help and ideas. Do you know how many employers after year one claimed that tax credit? Three. So we’re doing

something wrong. The money is there, and my sense is that we

need your help to make these programs less complicated and more

accessible so small businesses don’t have to spend a lot of time and

paperwork on this stuff.

Mr. BURTON. There is no question about that. The paperwork

scares the dickens out of a lot of businesspeople. But I believe a

lot of businesspeople and industry people are not aware of some of

these programs, and that is why I was talking about the Chamber

of Commerce. They do an awful lot of education work with business

and industry, and I think if business and industry was aware of

this to a greater degree, that might be beneficial.

Mr. BLANCK. Good point. Thank you.

Mr. BURTON. I want to ask you a question about being an actor.

All politicians have a latent desire to, you know—have you ever noticed how many movies we have Senators and Congressmen walking on, and they stumble all over their dialog? I don’t know how

they ever got elected, but nevertheless you see them on all of these

shows.

But I want to ask you a question. As a person with disability,

you have 60 percent burns over your body, and you lost both of

your legs, and you had a terrible time in recovery. How difficult

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was it to get employment in a very competitive field after having

gone through that?

Mr. HALL. Well, thanks for asking. By the way, I feel the same

way being on your turf that you might on mine. I’m completely

awed and honored to be here, and having grown up in D.C., I am

thinking about of the Godfather and Michael Corleone going: We

run a respectable business here.

I was fortunate that I was a wild child. I worked as a musician

in my twenties, and at the time I was injured, I was working as

a disk jockey at a radio station, and this was before anybody knew

about accessibility. So after I spent my months in the hospital, I

was burning with a desire to get back to work and to be a human

being again.

That is something people with disabilities—and all people—

share. We want to be productive people. I loved my job working on

the radio, up at 5 a.m. Fortunately, I was able to do my job in a

wheelchair just as easily. I had to roll up to the console, put my

headphones on—tells you how long ago it was—start spinning the

records, and put the CDs in.

And radio is magical. It is just you and one person listening to

you in the dark. And I did quite well at it. But as I started to heal

and grow and tried to do other jobs at other stations, they were not

accessible to me physically. I couldn’t go to the bathroom there.

There were a lot of problems.

Many places had never had a disabled entertainer, a disabled

person work with them. So I was the first to be working here or

working on this TV show or that show. They did not know what

to do with me, so my job was mainly making able-bodied people

feel comfortable. And I’m past that now.

You know, I think that if we have a talent, an ability, and it is

something that society needs, people with disabilities have the

same right to the same dreams as anybody else. You know, we

have plenty of college graduates who are disabled. We have just got

to get them job interviews; and not just any job interview, we need

to get them the same quality job interviews that Harvard kids and

Princeton kids. I care about—you know, I was not an overachiever

myself, but I care about the C students. We have C students running the country.

But I care about the—no, I’m serious. You know college degrees,

with due respect to Peter, who I met and enjoy immensely already,

we need to make sure that people that can contribute who have

disabilities get that opportunity to work. But we need to make sure

that the excellent—you know, that the A-plus students who are disabled are moving into the highest echelons that they can. That

they don’t just say, gee, I’d like to be a lawyer. They say, I would

like to be a lawyer at a top Washington, DC, law firm. You know,

this competitiveness is what gets you ahead. And the more people

with disabilities we have in higher positions and spread out across

the country, the faster this stuff is going to change, in my opinion.

Mr. BURTON. I think in summary you were very, very determined, and you never gave up, no matter what happened.

Mr. HALL. Well, neither did you, I mean.

Mr. BURTON. I know, but you overcame some severe disabilities,

and that is very admirable, but that is a quality that ought to be

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communicated to everybody, but in particular people with disabilities right now because that determination really paid off for you.

How about you, Mr. Register? You had a tough time.

Mr. Register.

Mr. REGISTER. I think for myself it was a very kind of emotional

time for me, and I think with my colleague Mr. Hall here as well.

But when you are a world-class athlete, and you have an injury of

that magnitude 2 years prior to the culmination of your whole life,

so to speak, it really can be devastating. And I think for myself it

was the family support that I had that really helped carry me

through, and my faith as well.

But looking forward and kind of now to giving back with the

Paralympic Academy, one of the things that we are doing is trying

to inspire others to overcome those disabilities, those barriers. And

I think some of the things that we see as disabilities are because

of what we see, and we tend to place limitations on persons instead

of looking for what is possible.

And I was doing that with myself, and it wasn’t until I was at

that Paralympic games as a swimmer—figure that one out—but I

saw a gentleman on the long jump runway doing what I did with

an artificial limb. And this man came down the long jump runway,

and everybody was clapping for him, and as he leapt into the air,

at the apex of his flight, his artificial leg flew off. And he landed

in the sand here, and his artificial leg landed about 3 feet up in

front of him. Everybody was hushed, because no one had seen that

before. I certainly hadn’t seen that before. As a long jumper in Arkansas, I never thought one of my legs would fly off running down

the track. And he turned to one of the officials, and he said, Now,

where you are going to measure that from? From right here or

from where my artificial leg landed up there? And I thought that

was an awesome paradigm shift to have. And it really challenged

me to look at what I was limiting myself with.

And as we move forward with the Paralympic Academy and

reaching out to these children, we are also developing a program

that is affecting the lives of our servicemembers who are coming

back from Afghanistan and Iraq that have physical disabilities. We

put together a program for them, a wheelchair basketball clinic. At

first they were very apprehensive about that, but when they got in

the chair and they saw some of the other athletes get in there, and

they were banging them around a little bit, it was on after that.

The disability went totally away, and the possibility was present

with them. And I think even though some of them may never play

wheelchair basketball again, it was a sense of freedom that I can

really do whatever I want to put my mind to do, and no one is

going to stop me.

I think I saw an article in the New York Times a couple of days

ago that called these soldiers tactical athletes. And what better

way for sport to bring the world together, as we have the Olympic

and Paralympic Games coming up at the end of the summer, to

really show what is possible with humankind and that everybody

is included in that endeavor.

Mr. BURTON. Thank you very much.

Ms. Watson.

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Ms. WATSON. Well, I am just flabbergasted listening to all four

of you, and certainly listening to Mr. Hall and Mr. Register as to

how they overcame. And I am a school psychologist in my other life

as well, and I would like to talk to you at another time about what

it took emotionally, psychological and mentally to overcome and to

achieve the success that all of you have.

I just want to tell you about an experience. I was called to go

over to Walter Reed several months ago by a Micronesian family.

That is where I was the Ambassador, and they called on me to

come, and I went to Walter Reed. And thank you, Mr. Hall, for

mentioning Walter Reed, and Ward 57 is where the wounded are

and severely wounded.

When I got to the hospital, the son, 19-year old son, of the family

was in one of the houses where—the transition house. And I took

a look, and I immediately warned the house mother to watch the

mother and the son for suicide, because in that culture when a

male can’t cope, he commits suicide. I had five suicides on my

watch. One was the President’s son. So I knew that if they didn’t

work with them properly, there could be suicide.

He lost an eye, an arm, and both legs and one at the hip, and

I knew that he could not return home to an island 20,000 miles

away where you go to the hospital to die. So he would never be

able to return to his native home. He would have to, because they

just didn’t have the facilities there.

And I knew that we had lots of work to do, Mr. Chair, to address

the needs of these new amputees and the newly disabled to have

them fit back in to a normal or traditional life. I don’t know if we

have been able to solve that one yet.

Someone visited my office and presented to me something that

looked like a credit card. And she said, I have created this credit

card that you could use at an airport, and it has a chip in and it,

and I want to ask you what you know about it. It has a chip in

it that would identify your medical provider, would give your diagnosis, would tell of your handicap; because this young lady was in

a terrible accident and had a metal rod in her leg, and, of course,

every time she went through the security gate, it went off. It delayed her because she would be taken aside, wanded, and then

taken to another room because they couldn’t figure it out. I know

you have experienced that time and time again.

Mr. HALL. Anything that gets me through security faster I will

walk the Hill up and down with you.

Ms. WATSON. And she said it just makes traveling so inconvenient that I do very little of it by plane.

I told her—there is a picture on it. It was just like a credit card

or a driver’s license. And I said, put a thumbprint on it, and we

will see. It could be used as international identification. It could be

used as passport. It could be used in many different ways, because

there is a chip in there that gives the pertinent information. In

that, with another chip, we could give information on—any pertinent information that we can. This is something that I see as removing a barrier from you. We just have to get a machine there

that you can put it into and it would say: Go through.

Mr. HALL. I applaud the security that people are doing and the

reasons they have to do it, but I’m with you, Representative WatVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:10 Jan 05, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00131 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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son. It’s not about unwillingness to go through security, but as my

wife Judy, who has joined me today, can tell you, one time I’ll go

through security easily because somebody recognizes me from the

show. The next time I’ll go through a 20-minute thing where they

will want me to take my prosthetic legs off and inspect them, and

it is quite humiliating.

So it is not just me. I may be an extreme example. I am sure

John has set a few off in his day, too. And most of the time you

laugh about it, but there should be some way that all people are

treated with a certain amount of respect while we are doing the security that is necessary in these times.

Ms. WATSON. Mr. Reich in the wheelchair, tell us about your experiences.

Mr. REICH. Well, Mr. Chairman, I feel that our Harris survey

today presents a rather bleak picture, snapshot, if you will, but I

just want to say that there has been progress. There is progress.

We have identified it in several areas. And what I have always

maintained in 42 years as a person with a disability is that if you

have to have a disability, America is the place to have it.

Mr. HALL. Amen.

Mr. REICH. I have felt very fortunate, of course. I had a family

of 4 children under 6 at the time of my injury. I had my education

actually with three master’s degrees, and I was an All American

javelin thrower and All Ivy halfback in football. And I had a very—

I felt a very beautiful future ahead of me.

But I came home from the hospital, and thanks to my wife and

family and friends and all the people who have been supportive

over the years, it has been possible to make a life that has been

very rewarding.

And I would say that, you know, we can take the kind of ideas

you have expressed today, I think they are terrific, and I am encouraged by what you suggested and challenged, if you will, in the

whole idea of providing incentives. That is what America is all

about. Leadership is—the assumption of leadership in this country.

When you take those ideas, and I intend to—and we can cast those

about and make known some of the wonderful programs that are

out there. We didn’t even talk about the Small Business Administration, the Veterans Administration. There are programs. The

problem is nobody knows it. And we can—and sure, we can harness

the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the AARP, 50 other major associations, get the word out

there, get it with a little encouragement, get the White House and

the President’s New Freedom Initiative behind this, and really stop

talking just about what the government can do, but what the private sector can do, what the American people can do and want to

do and will do if given the ideas, given the encouragement, and if

shown the way.

So I think I am very proud that we have been able to provide

some guidelines, suggest some problem areas, present some challenges, and I suggest that we, the American people, need bow our

heads to no one when it comes to disability. We are at the forefront. We started, initiated the whole United Nations Initiative on

Disability way back in the 1970’s that is continuing to have a radiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:10 Jan 05, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00132 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97397.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ating impact around the world. And we have more to present as a

beacon of hope for all mankind. So thank God we’re Americans.

Mr. BURTON. I didn’t know you were a javelin thrower at one

time. I’ve been a lifetime javelin catcher.

Mr. REICH. That can be dangerous.

Mr. BURTON. Ms. Watson, do you have any more questions?

I just want to thank all of you for being here today. I see a lot

of people in the audience who are suffering from disabilities as

well. I want you to know that this hearing will not be the end of

government’s looking into this. Ms. Watson and I and others who

were here earlier today will work on initiatives to try to expand the

help we can give to people with disabilities so that they can have

a better quality of life and maybe help some of them find some real

success in their lives that they haven’t realized so far. And with

that, this. I’m going to watch CSI, and if you ever need a walk-on,

call me.

Ms. WATSON. And I’m going to go to the Olympics.

Mr. BURTON. We stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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