States can restrict eligibility by age, mental state, income and type of disability, and individuals who can be kept in nursing homes at a lower cost are sometimes excluded from attendant care programs. Each of these programs has different eligibility criteria and administering authorities. Looking for uniformity, broader eligibility criteria and the elimination of waiting lists, disability rights advocates want to replace the hodgepodge of state programs with a national attendant care initiative. The plan would make attendant care an entitlement program for the poor disabled, enabling them to leave nursing homes or avoid going into them in the first place. Nursing home care is already an entitlement.
Advocates say people with disabilities lead happier lives in their own homes.
Not just those who run the minute mile. And not just those who wear a Colgate smile. Fulk's flight from Oklahoma made the July-August 1997 edition of the disability rights magazine Mouth. Thanks to the Lord for my escape from the nursing home. One waiver enables residents to leave intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded or avoid going into them in the first place.