The UCB Flier
A publication of
Utah Council of the Blind
May 2017
For the latest news updates call the Utah Connection 801-299-0670 or 1‑800-273-4569.
(You may also leave a message at the end of the announcement.)
Mail correspondence to: UCB, PO Box 1415, Bountiful, UT 84011-1415.
E-mail us at info@utahcounciloftheblind.org.
In This Issue
President's Message.................................................................................. 2
Upcoming May and June Activities............................................................. 3
Latest Calendar with Updates.................................................................... 4
To Become a Better Cook, Sharpen Your Senses..................................... 5
A Measurable Improvement in STEM Access for the Blind........................ 9
Scientists Create New Material That May Lead to
Self-Healing Electronics................................................................................................ 11
ACB Welcomes Reintroduction of Medicare Demonstration
Bill............... 13
Protecting Medicaid For Utah Residents with
Disabilities......................... 14
What is Medicaid................................................................................... 14
Why is Medicaid so important for
individuals with disabilities?.............. 15
How do Medicaid services help
children with disabilities?.................... 15
How do Medicaid investments impact
Utah residents with disabilities & Easterseals?......................................................................................... 16
How do block grant & per
capita proposals jeopardize critical services?.............................................................................................................. 16
Easter Seals position on Medicaid
reform:............................................ 17
General UCB Information......................................................................... 17
Upcoming Board Meetings.................................................................... 18
Braille Reading for Fun........................................................................... 19
2017 REGISTRATION FORM............................................................... 20
Greetings UCB
Friends,
I want to
start by thanking TerriLynne Pomeroy and her committee for the outstanding
technology fair they put together. Learning and exploring technology is so
great. This particular event was great because we got to see so much technology
all in one place.
If you are
thinking of joining us for the national convention, you will see an entire
exhibit hall full of technology. SO COOL!
I also want
to thank all those who helped with the annual Easter egg hunt. Kira Larken was
such an addition with her fantastic balloon animals, the Pioneers with the egg
hunt experience for young and old, as well as the hotdog lunch. Cindy Knolls'
and Patricia Beaman's bunny booboos were handed out
to all the egg hunters. You all helped make it a spring spectacular.
A life lesson
for me I wanted to share--as you know, it takes a big experience for me to
learn something profound. So, here it is: For spring break this past month, my
family and I decided we did not get enough snow. So, we went to visit my
brother-in-law who is a ski instructor. We spent a couple of days skiing the
slopes at Big Sky in Montana. I have not skied for a few years, and I was
definitely anxious. I guess it was just the thought of flying down the hill at
mock speed and the possibility of losing focus and crashing into any number of
obstacles, trees, flags, signs, other skiers. Well, the time came for me to
strap my feet to the giant tooth picks and give it a go. There are different
methods to skiing as a blind person My brother-in-law chose the method of horse
and buggy, he being the horse and I being the buggy. He would hold onto one end
of two long bamboo poles and I would hold onto the other. As he would navigate
faster and faster our way down the snow-covered mountain I would hold on for
dear life and try not to lose focus as to which way he was pulling the poles to
signal which way I was to make a turn. The first time down the death trap, as
you can imagine, was a little rough. I was pretty much terrified and, have to
admit, scared for my life. On that first trip down the mountain, I only fell
once. But, I will tell you, I was amazed that I was still alive. When asked if
I wanted to do it again, I actually agreed. In fact, by the end of the ski
trip, I was skiing all over the Big Sky Mountain and urging my brother-in-law
to go faster. As I look back, I marvel at the change in comfort level from the
first time down the mountain to the last. I have decided that it is all about
just doing it!
You see, each
time down the mountain, I became more comfortable with the feel of the poles,
the slight bumps on the trails, and the slope of the mountain. By just doing it
over and over, I was able to go from complete fear to grand adventure!
In our lives,
we have scary things that we are asked to do, take a new bus route, start a new
class, or take on a new job. Whatever it is, if we just go and do it, each
repeated step we take will become more comfortable.
Until next
time,
Anna Jeffery,
UCB President
Join us at
DSBVI, 250 N 1950 W, Salt Lake City on Saturday, May 20, for games and lunch.
Games will begin at around 10 a.m. and lunch will be about noon, depending on
how much fun we are having with games. Right?
The cost for
lunch is only $5.00, and the UCB needs to receive your money by Wednesday, May
17.
On Saturday,
June 10, we will be taking a trip to the Seaquest Aquarium, 1201 N Hill Field
Rd #1072 (Layton Hills Mall) in Layton. The aquarium opens at 10:00 a.m. The
UCB will participate in a field trip beginning at that time. You can stay as
long as you wish if you are traveling on your own. It is important that you
bring a sighted guide for this activity. This aquarium sounds like a lot of
fun! There are a number of activities, some included with the cost of
admission, and some for an additional fee. Free activities include interacting
with birds and fish, as well as participating in special shows. Extra fees are
charged for those who wish to snorkel with stingrays and sharks or have a
pedicure by the fish. Snorkeling requires you to bring your own swimsuit and
towel and costs about $40. The pedicure is approximately $15. These activities
require that you call and reserve your special time to participate. The phone
number is 801-544-4938. Be sure to tell them that you will be there with the
Utah Council of the Blind.
The cost for
admission will be $6.00 if you arrive on time and enter with the group to
participate in the field trip. If you are late, you will be required to pay the
usual entry fee, which is substantially higher and may miss the special guided
field trip. If you wish to buy any tokens which will allow you to feed animals,
the tokens will be $2 for each token if you purchase them from a UCB leader. If
you buy them on your own, they are $2.50. The tokens are used in the gift shop,
as well as to purchase food for the birds and the fish. Lunch will be on your
own. If you intend to participate, the UCB needs to receive your $6.00 per
person by June 5. There are limited spaces available, and they will be reserved
on a first come, first served basis, so get you money in early. Transportation
may be available, depending on the need. If you have a special need to get to
this activity, leave your name and number on the Utah Connection, and we will
be in touch.
Mail checks
or money orders for any activities to UCB, PO Box 1415, Bountiful, UT
84011-1415. They need to reach us by dates given. Unless otherwise noted,
classes and activities listed below are held at the Division of Services for
the Blind, 250 N 1950 W, Salt Lake City.
· Monday, May 8, 7 pm, Beauty and the Beast
with the OAB at the Ziegfeld Theater, 3934 South Washington Blvd, Ogden. For
more information call the OAB at 385-206-8820.
· Wednesday, May 10, 6:00 p.m. Utah
Opera dress rehearsal of Mozart's Don Giovanni at Capitol Theater, 50 West 200
South, Salt Lake City. For reservations, call Ann at 801-585-2213 by May 8.
· Wednesday, May 17, deadline for
payment for games day lunch.
· Saturday, May 20, 10 am to 1 pm, Games
and Lunch at DSBVI
· Monday, May 22, 3:30 pm, UCB Board
meeting, DSBVI Board Room
· Monday, June 5, deadline for payments
for Seaquest Aquarium
· Saturday, June 10, 10:00 am, Seaquest
Aquarium
· Monday, June 26, 3:30 pm, UCB Board
meeting, DSBVI Board Room.
Kate
McDermott describes it as “the sizzle-whump.”
It’s the
sound a pie makes when it’s perfectly baked, said Ms. McDermott, the author of
“Art of the Pie.”
The “sizzle”
is the sound of hot butter cooking the flour in the crust, melding it into a
crisp, golden lid. The “whump” is the sound of the thickened filling bumping
against the top crust as it bubbles at a steady pace.
“I call it
the heartbeat of the pie,” she said.
Ms.
McDermott, who is 63 and lives in Port Angeles, Washington, leads intensive
baking seminars across the country. But before she became a pie coach, she was
a professional musician. “I experience the world primarily through sound,” she
said. “I’ve been listening to pies since I started baking them.”
Any
experienced cook knows that there is much more to cooking than just taste.
There is touch (tapping the top of a pie to make sure it is completely firm),
smell (inhaling the changing scents of the crust as it bakes), sound (listening
to its heartbeat) and sight (watching for the juices to turn thick).
Learn to use
all five senses in the kitchen and you’ll become a better cook—especially if
you sharpen the ones that are less associated with cooking: hearing, touch and
smell.
Cooks with
visual impairments, who cannot see the golden brown of a pie crust or the shine
of perfectly scrambled eggs, know this better than anyone. The cook and writer
Christine Ha, 37, said that touch has become her primary guide in the kitchen
since she began losing her sight soon after starting college.
“It’s like my
fingertips have become my eyes,” she said. “I can learn so much more by touch
than I would have thought.”
Ms. Ha, who
lives in Houston, learned to cook only after she could no longer see. Like
about 90 percent of visually impaired people, she is not completely blind: She
can see some light and color, and describes her view of the world as “like
looking into a steamy mirror.” All the more impressive, then, that in 2012 she
won the third season of the frenetic television cooking competition “Master Chef.”
She started
cooking with her late mother’s deep-fried spring rolls, reverse-engineering
them through touch and hearing as well as taste and smell. Her fingers test the
pliability of the wrappers; she listens for the sound the bubbling oil makes
when she throws in a bit of filling to test its heat; she taps the frying rolls
with tongs to test whether the shells are crisp and blistered.
David Linden,
a neurobiologist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of the book
“Touch,” confirmed that the fingertips become more sensitive in people who are
blind from birth and in those who learn to read Braille. “Hearing and touch
become more acute in the absence of sight,” he said. The part of the brain
dedicated to gathering information from the eyes actually shrinks in size,
while the parts that receive signals from the ears and touch-sensitive nerve
endings grow larger.
Dr. Linden
said, however, there is no comparable adaptation for people who lose their
ability to taste and smell, a condition called anosmia. “People who become
anosmic are much more likely to stop cooking and eating than people who become
deaf or blind,” he said; anosmics are also at much greater risk for depression
and suicide. “The shared experience of food seems to be one of the things that
makes us human.”
Kate Crohan, who teaches cooking at the Perkins School for the
Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, said that culinary education for the blind
often relies on heating prepared foods in microwaves—a safe and practical
option, but one that eliminates much of the sensory experience. Ms. Crohan, 68,
has been blind since birth, but she took over the family kitchen when she was
11, after her mother’s death, cooking for her father and five siblings. She has
been cooking without sight for so long that she is entirely comfortable around
sharp knives, boiling water and raw ingredients.
“An organized
kitchen is more than half the battle,” said Ms. Crohan, who has memorized the
location and shape of key ingredients like baking soda, flour and onions. “I
don’t waste a lot of time finding things.”
These
workarounds can be useful to any cook. Many of the important cues in any
kitchen have nothing to do with sight or taste: distinguishing the sound of a
boil versus a simmer; knowing the feel of a rare steak versus a medium-well
one; biting into pasta as it cooks to catch the brief, perfect moment between
chewy and soft.
For most of
human history, children learned those cues simply by being near the stove. But
today, unless they spend a lot of time in a kitchen, their sensory cooking
skills may be limited to listening for the moment when the microwave popcorn
stops popping. Those children grow up to be cooks who focus on reading and
rereading recipes, often at the expense of paying attention to the stove.
But recipes
are inherently limited when it comes to sensory information. An instruction
like “simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, until thickened” can produce
endlessly different results. The recipe doesn’t know what your stove considers
“low” heat. It doesn’t know what your pan is made of. It doesn’t know what
“thickened” looks like to you.
That’s why
the best cooks learn to work not just with their minds and their taste buds,
but also with all their senses.
The cooking
teacher James Peterson uses a chicken breast to teach students how to feel for
doneness, because it has thick and thin areas. “As it cooks in the skillet,
keep your fingers moving from the thin part to the thick,” he said. “You’ll be
able to feel how the heat gradually moves through the meat.”
Edna Lewis,
the doyenne of American Southern cooking, taught that listening to a cake is
the best way to know when it’s done. A cake that is still baking makes little
bubbling and ticking sounds, but a finished cake goes quiet.
The chef
Justin Smillie of Upland in Manhattan built the short rib dish that made him
famous by seeking not a certain flavor, but a certain "mouthfeel". “I
knew how to get the flavor where I wanted it,” he said. “But the texture was
the challenge.”
Like any
chef, he knew how to braise a collagen-rich cut of meat to make it meltingly
tender and umami-rich. But he wanted more: the crust of a steak and, for good
measure, the juiciness of prime rib. Eventually, by steaming the meat in big
pieces and applying a coat of cracked peppercorns, he reached his goal.
(According to Dr. Linden, this quest makes sense: The most universally liked "mouthfeel"
across human cultures is a crispy crust around a soft interior, like Middle
Eastern falafel, Japanese tempura, Italian arancini, Indian samosas and French
fries.)
In Mr.
Smillie’s thrice-roasted chicken recipe (cooked first on the stovetop, then in
the oven, then back to the stove to be baisted in butter), all three steps move
the dish toward a particular "mouthfeel" as well as flavor. Well
before the cooking begins, the chicken is brined (for juicy flesh), then
air-dried in the refrigerator (for crisp skin). All along the way, Mr. Smillie
is touching, listening, sniffing, prodding: paying attention to all the cues
that make the dish transcend the category of “roast chicken.”
“Sensory
cooking is the opposite of technique,” Mr. Smillie said. “The formulas you
learn in culinary school won’t make you a chef, but cooking with all your
senses will.”
A
multisensory approach to food is not only practical, but also all the rage.
Ever since the chef Heston Blumenthal put headphones on his guests so they
could listen to his dish Sound of the Sea while they ate it, and Grant Achatz
served a deep breath of lavender-scented air at Alinea (it arrived at the table
trapped in a pillow), chefs have been trying to create dishes that challenge
our assumptions about how we experience food.
The most
recent multisensory development is the connection between food and autonomous
sensory meridian response, or A.S.M.R. A newly defined sensory state, A.S.M.R.
is a kind of pleasurable shivering or tingling that spreads along the scalp,
upper back and shoulders in response to soothing repetitive sounds. Originally,
these included soft whispering, pages turning or having one’s hair brushed.
Now, A.S.M.R.
devotees have discovered food. Video series like Silently Cooking and Peaceful
Cuisine have no talking, no music, nothing to distract from the sounds of
cooking: the rasp of a knife shaving chocolate, the rhythmic scrape of a whisk
whipping egg whites, the glug-glug of olive oil pouring into a pan. Even eating
sounds have A.S.M.R. devotees, especially if it involves chewing candy and
whispering at the same time.
A.S.M.R. may
provide a pleasurable new way for Ms. McDermott to experience pie. She learned
that she had celiac disease in 2006 and can no longer eat most of the pies she
teaches others to make (though she has devised a gluten-free crust recipe).
When a particularly beautiful specimen comes out of the oven, she said she
appreciated it nonetheless.
“It doesn’t
matter if I can’t eat this pie,” she said. “I can see it, I can smell it, I can
touch it. The only sense I can’t have for it is taste.”
Two MIT
graduate students have developed a device that provides better access to STEM
materials for the blind and low-vision community.
How would you
learn geometry without seeing the shapes? How would you calculate Pythagoras’
lengths without seeing the measurements? MIT graduate students Pranay Jain and
Anshul Singhal asked these questions, seeking to address the fact that most
blind students drop out of math and science after 8th grade because content
becomes unavailable and the laboratory becomes inaccessible.
About 75
percent of the blind and low-vision (BLV) community is unemployed in the United
States and is significantly underrepresented in the growing fields of science,
technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Jain and Singhal, PhD candidates in
Course 2 (mechanical engineering) at MIT, co-founded Squirrel Devices to tackle
this problem. Their first instrument aims to make geometry’s continuous shapes
and lengths measurable with a plastic sliding caliper that enables BLV students
to read measurements in Braille, as one would on a regular ruler.
Jain and
Singhal are not new to the assistive technology community; the two worked on a
Refreshable Braille Display in their undergraduate years at the Indian
Institute of Technology in Delhi. The team reflects, “One has a lot of
questions when first interacting with the community. We wondered about using
phrases like ‘take a look at this!’ or holding our hands out for a handshake.
Would they care about the color of the device?” The answer is, yes, of course
they care! BLV students may not be able to see color, but like any 13-year old,
they know the connotations of pink or blue. As a result, Squirrel Devices chose
a bright yellow for the caliper.
Many BLV
students also asked for a talking, digital measuring instrument. But Jain and
Singhal knew that they wanted a mechanical solution, one that wouldn’t be as
prone to electronic failure, or as expensive. “We were repeatedly reminded that
education is increasingly becoming digital, but you can’t listen to a diagram,
can you?” notes Jain.
The MIT
community has helped push Squirrel Devices forward. The team received support
from the IDEAS Global Challenge, the annual innovation, service, and social
entrepreneurship competition run by the Priscilla King Gray Public Service
Center. “IDEAS’ support was critical — the network, coaching, training, and the
application process itself — all were very useful. It forced us to create a
business plan, prototypes, posters, and get feedback from the judges. We got
further along the process than we would have on our own, and were plugged into
a community of people who truly care,” states Jain. They also cited Paul
Parravano, co-director of MIT’s Office of Government and Community Relations,
as a source of inspiration and motivation. He has blindness and was the first
user to test the device and give feedback. The late professor Seth Teller was
crucial in helping the team find the right partners, and they have taken
advantage of the various maker-spaces on campus.
Squirrel
Devices has achieved revolutionary impact without reliance on cutting-edge
21st-century technology. Unsurprisingly, the device has been an immediate hit
with their users. They have already sold thousands of units since last year, in
partnership with the National Braille Press, and received the Louis Braille
Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation in recognition of their thoughtful
integration of Braille with existing tools to open up new opportunities for BLV
students. “The use-case always surprises us,” says Jain. “A student we gave the
device to immediately measured the length of his finger — a thing we take for
granted.” One teacher, who had previously wondered how students who had yet to
grasp fractions could use the caliper, called the team to tell them how thanks
to it, her students are becoming fluent in fractions. Another teacher was glad
her students now had a way to accurately measure liquids in a graduated
cylinder.
The success
of the caliper has built excitement for Squirrel Devices’ next instrument, the
Tactile Protractor, which is currently under development.
Article Link:
http://news.mit.edu/2017/measurable-improvement-in-stem-access-for-the-blind-0322
By Catalin Cimpanu
April 9, 2017
Scientists
have developed a new type of material that could be used in the future to
create self-healing electronics, such as smart phones, batteries, speakers,
robotics, and others.
The new
material, which doesn't have a name as of yet, is transparent, stretches up to
50 times its size, conducts ions to generate current, and stitches itself
together in about a day, at room temperature, after being completely torn
apart. New material repairs itself in about a day.
The new
material is the work of Ph.D. Chao Wang, from the University of California,
Riverside, who's been working on it for the past two years. The material has
been called an artificial muscle, albeit is not intended for medical
applications. The reason it's been called this is because it responds and moves
to electrical signals, just like a real muscle.
At the
chemical level, this material is a combination between an ionic salt and a
stretchable polymer (vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene), which stays together
thanks to fluid-like type of bond called an ion-dipole interaction.
Researcher
initially wanted to make a self-healing battery. Wang says he started working
on this material being inspired by X-Men character
Wolverine, wanting to create a self-healing lithium ion battery that could
repair itself when dropped and damaged.
His research
advanced as he realized the material is highly transparent and could be used
for other purposes, such as a smart phone's screen. In the real world, LG G
Flex smart phones come with a self-healing cover that repairs itself from knife
attacks, but unlike Wang's material, it doesn't conduct electric signals.
Wang's
research will take this type of material to the next level, allowing
manufacturers to employ it for more than covers. Currently, Wang's team is
testing the material in high-humidity environments, wanting to see how water
affects the self-repair operations.
The scientist
showed his most recent studies this past week at a meeting of the American
Chemical Society. To watch a video of Dr. Wang presenting his work and
answering questions from the press, you can go online to:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/scientists-create-new-material-that-may-lead-to-self-healing-electronics/
WASHINGTON,
April 7, 2017 — The American Council of the Blind (ACB) commends Reps. Carolyn
Maloney (D-NY), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), and Steve Cohen (D-TN) on reintroduction
of the Medicare Demonstration of Coverage of Low-Vision Devices Act of 2017
(H.R. 2050). This legislation will establish a national demonstration/research
project tasked with identifying the impact to Medicare and Medicare recipients
who are prescribed low-vision devices over a certain threshold cost.
“As more and
more older Americans encounter significant vision loss, it’s critical that
government seek out pathways that can sustain independence in the home,” said
Kim Charlson, president of ACB. “The more we can sustain independence for daily
living, the less reliant individuals with significant vision loss will be on
more costly alternatives like assistive living.”
The Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ruled almost a decade ago, through an
eye-glasses exclusion, that Medicare would no longer cover low-vision devices. The
rule raised great concerns among blindness advocates, who argue the significant
rise in visual disability among the Baby Boomer generation requires measures
that will help them age in place, rather than find themselves on a pathway
toward costly care-giving services. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), through its Vision Health Initiative, has identified
blindness and vision loss as a serious health concern for the United States
over the next three decades.
“Through this
demonstration, eligible participants could be prescribed assistive low-vision
devices through a licensed eye care physician,” said Eric Bridges, ACB
executive director. “These are the types of devices that might be too costly
for someone on Social Security, but the kind of things that could have dramatic
improvements in their daily life, like being able to read their mail, keep
track of their medications, or fill out important forms with personal
information.”
As Congress
seeks out ways to improve health care costs, ACB urges the House of
Representatives to support H.R. 2050, and move toward expanding greater
independence for the millions of older Americans with severe vision loss. To
learn more about this important issue, visit (www.acb.org/pageblah).
The American
Council of the Blind is the nation’s leading consumer grassroots organization
representing Americans who are blind and visually impaired. ACB strives to
increase the independence, security, equality of opportunity, and to improve
quality of life for all people who are blind and visually impaired. Learn more
at www.acb.org.
A
statement from Easter Seals
Medicaid
provides critical, often life-saving, health care, long-term services and
community supports to millions of children and adults living with disabilities.
Created in 1965, Medicaid is jointly funded by states and the federal
government. States design their Medicaid programs to provide federally mandated
services in addition to services or special populations that are a priority in
the state. Federally-mandated services are directed to both children and adults
based on specific eligibility criteria and include hospital services, home
health care, laboratory and x-ray services, and nursing home care. States must
also provide Early, Periodic, Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment services for
eligible children. States may also offer optional services, including
prescription drugs, dental care, hearing aids, and physical and other therapy
services which are particularly important to eligible individuals with
disabilities. Medicaid covered nearly 70 million Americans during 2016,
including children, pregnant women, individuals with disabilities and low
income seniors.
Individuals
with disabilities, especially those with chronic health conditions, can require
medical and long-term care to maintain their health, independence and
well-being. Medicaid is the largest payer for long-term care for all Americans
and, often, the sole source of health and long-term care for many individuals
with disabilities.
One in seven
Medicaid enrollees (or about 10.4 million Americans) is an individual with
disabilities. Medicaid services such as attendant care, home health, adult day
and prevocational services help individuals with disabilities remain in their
home and communities and live productive lives. Some states offer Medicaid
Buy-In programs that allow individuals with disabilities who are working to
retain their needed health care coverage while earning above the regular
Medicaid income limits. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid was the only
available insurance program that included the benefits that people with
disabilities needed to support their health.
Millions of
individuals with disabilities benefit from the health care and community-based
supports available through Medicaid. June was born with a condition eventually
diagnosed as Hirschsprung’s Disease. The Utah toddler also has an untreatable
brain disease, heart defects (requiring open heart surgery), serious
motor/cognitive/speech delays, severe allergies, atopic dermatitis, and hearing
and vision issues, which resulted in numerous surgeries and procedures her
first two years. Both her parents worked to complete advanced degrees, but
June’s health resulted in substantial financial challenges for the family. Her
condition required regular travel to the children’s hospital, home medical
supplies, increased daycare costs, among other expenses, that placed extra
financial burdens on the family. Thanks to Medicaid, June accessed what she
needed in treatment and services, which were provided by Easterseals in Utah.
Medicaid enables people to be assisted with serious medical conditions, and her
parents believe their daughter is alive and has a better life because of
Medicaid.
In Utah, 12%
of Utah Medicaid enrollees (or 41,600) are individuals with disabilities. Utah
provides home and community-based services through a Medicaid waiver program
that provides eligible Utah residents with disabilities with access to services
to help them remain in their home and community rather than higher-cost,
less-favorable institutional care. Utah received an estimated $1.9 billion in
fiscal year 2017 in return for providing specific benefits and protections to
eligible Utah residents, including individuals with disabilities. The Utah
Department of Health provides essential services and supports to individuals
with disabilities through a network of Medicaid community providers, including
Easterseals-Goodwill Northern Rocky Mountain located in Utah. Easterseals is a
national provider of Medicaid services for individuals with disabilities.
Congressional
proposals to convert Medicaid financing from an entitlement program into a state
block grant or per capita allotment program would dramatically alter the
program and negatively impact individuals with disabilities who meet the
program’s eligibility. The current Medicaid structure entitles eligible
individuals to core services and, in turn, guarantees states to federal
matching payments with no cap to meet program needs of eligible residents.
The block
grant proposal would shift Medicaid program costs to states and put Medicaid
beneficiaries, including individuals with disabilities, at risk for services.
Under a block grant, federal Medicaid funding to states would be capped,
eliminating the current entitlement structure that allows federal funding to
respond to changing program needs, such as recessions, epidemics or disasters.
This lack of federal funding flexibility would be passed on to states, who,
based on their own financial restrictions, may be forced to limit or end
current services to reduce costs. A block grant would also likely end the
federal core service components that are required in turn for the federal
match.
The per
capita proposal would limit the federal government’s reimbursement to states
based on a per-enrollee amount. If state Medicaid costs per enrollee increase,
due to health care inflation, epidemic or other health circumstance, these
costs would shift solely to states given the federal reimbursement is capped.
Reductions in critical services to individuals with disabilities and other
Medicaid beneficiaries or higher program premiums would be likely cost-reduction
strategies, especially for states that have limited revenue flexibility.
Easterseals
respectfully asks Congress to protect Medicaid for people with disabilities by:
· Opposing proposals that remove
Medicaid’s guarantee of services to eligible populations;
· Opposing proposals that convert
Medicaid to block grant or per capita financing;
· Maintaining Medicaid’s current
structure that guarantees states a federal funding formula match, based on
eligibility costs, without a federal cap;
· Ensuring Medicaid reform doesn’t shift
costs to individuals or reduce services; and
· Advancing policies that allow more
Medicaid services to be delivered in home and community-based settings.
We are always
looking for articles or interesting tidbits of information from our readers or
other interested persons. The deadline for submitting items for publication is
the 1st of the month, e.g. the deadline for the May newsletter is April 1st.
You may e-mail any articles you wish to submit for our newsletter to our
editor, TerriLynne Pomeroy, at tl1@ml1.net, or send Braille or print to UCB
Newsletter, PO Box 1415, Bountiful, UT 84011-1415; please allow extra time for
processing Braille or print.
Members are
invited and encouraged to attend meetings of the Board of Directors. These are
typically held the fourth Monday of each month at 3:15 p.m. in the DSBVI Board
Room (in the southeast corner of the building).
· Monday, May 22, 2017
· Monday, June 26, 2017
· Monday, July 31, 2017
The UCB Flier is available in large print, Braille,
audio cassette tape, audio CD, as a Microsoft Word and a plain text file on CD,
and by e-mail. If you would prefer to receive your newsletter in a different
format, please call the Utah Connection or send an e-mail to ucb.board@gmail.com and let us know.
Disclaimer: Articles and announcements included
in this publication are presented for your information and interest. They reflect
the opinions of the respective authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the
UCB.
A Summer Reading Program
presented
by
Utah Council of the Blind
Join us as we
promote Braille Literacy for Utah children in grades K through 4.
For every 20
braille books read together with a parent or guardian, the child will receive
his/her favorite dual vision book to own; the more books read, the more books
earned.
Each child who
successfully completes the program by reading at least 20 books will also
receive a day pass to Lagoon for themself and their
parent/guardian.
Register on or before May 15, 2017
Limited to 20 participants, so register
early
Call or Text: Anna Jeffery at 801-654-3772 or
email ucb.board@gmail.com
Many dual vision books are available through
the Utah State Library Division for the Blind and Disabled. Call 801-715-6789
for more information.
We also encourage you to participate
in:
Seedlings Braille
Books for Children's
2017
Book Angel Program for V-I Children
http://www.seedlings.org/bkangel2009.php
Braille
Reading for Fun
A
Summer Reading Program
presented by
Utah
Council of the Blind
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Child's Name: |
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Phone Number: |
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Grade just completed: |
Utah Council of the Blind FREE
MATTER
1301 W 500 S FOR
THE BLIND
Woods Cross UT 84087-2224 AND
DISABLED