Too many people with disabilities still do not have the care and support they need. They need a strong Medicare prescription drug benefit. About one in eight Medicare beneficiaries over 5 million citizens are people with disabilities under age 65. Over the next 10 years that number is expected to double. Often, they can t afford private coverage and they face this impossible choice between buying groceries, paying their rent, or paying for their medication.
Families raising children with disabilities deserve access to health care for their children.
No family should be forced to stay in poverty or go into poverty, or even give up custody of their disabled child in order to obtain needed health care for the child. These families deserve the right to buy-in to Medicaid so that their family can stay together and stay employed. People with disabilities also need community-based assistance that works, so that they live at home with their families and in their communities. With better and stronger services and supports in the home and in the community, children and adults with disabilities, and senior citizens as well, can live full lives at home with their families. This will be the challenge of the next decade, and we need to work together to meet it.