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Disability Rights Arrested for Protesting Medicaid Cuts on Capitol Hill
One of my biggest complaints in health advocacy is that the country gets bent out of shape when government officials offer proposals to privatize Social Security or end Medicare, but there are very few people who defend Medicaid.
Well that changed this week! Today, 75 disability rights activists (along with actor Noah WIley) were arrested in Capitol Hill protesting the Paul Ryan budget, which would end Medicaid as a federal entitlement program (and completely underminte the Affordable Care Act, which uses Medicaid to expand coverage to millions of people).
“I’m getting arrested today because my Medicaid services are important to me,” said Michelle Fridley of Rochester New York in handcuffs escorted by a Capitol Police officer. “I don’t want to live …
Posted on April 24, 2012 at 1:04 pm
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US Bans Discrimination Against Transgender Federal Employees
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruled that federal employment protection laws apply to transgender people. This could have major impact for the fight for transgender nondiscrimination laws being fought at every level of government.
Metro Weekly reports “Mia Macy [a former Pheonix, AZ police detective], a transgender woman who claims she was denied employment with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency learned of her transition. [The ruling] also comes on the heels of a growing number of federal appellate and trial courts deciding that gender-identity discrimination constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.”
The Transgender Law Center is representing Ms. Macy …
Posted on April 23, 2012 at 3:30 pm
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ADAP Watch: AIDS Drug Wait List Hits 3,079
As of April 19th, the wait list to receive lifesaving AIDS medication through the nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Programs had hit 3,079 people across 10 states.
The number of people waiting to receive medication through state-run AIDS drug programs has increased more than 5,000 percent since August 2009, according to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The federal government has reacted with little urgency, however, allotting just $25 million in additional dollars to the program for FY 2012.
To help readers keep tabs on the growing ADAP crisis, we are now posting the ADAP Watch—the document that …
Posted on April 23, 2012 at 10:20 am
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HRA Commish Doar to Force HASA Dependents to Work
Rather that overtly state his overall plan for drastically cutting the HASA caseload, it seems that HRA Commissioner Robert Doar prefers to slip major HASA policy changes out in news stories piece by piece. They’re often covered up by other verbiage that you have to pick through to find. It’s like using ketchup to cover the taste of rotting meat.
Doar has served up steak again. Last week, AIDS activists learned that HASA “is also introducing work requirements for the 1,300 able-bodied adult dependents, most of them adult children of AIDS patients,” as scribbled in a larger piece by Kay S. Hymowitz for City Journal, the “news” magazine published by the right-wing think tank Manhattan Institute.
…Posted on April 19, 2012 at 6:19 pm
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Advocates Seek Ban on Condoms as Evidence of Prostitution
By: Carmelita Cruz, Director of NYS Advocacy & Organizing for Housing Works
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 marked the first annual No Condoms as Evidence lobby day!
The bill (S.323 Montgomery/A.1008 Clark) would ban the introduction of unused condoms as evidence of solicitation, prostitution or related offenses in any criminal proceeding.
Currently, in New York City, and large cities across the nation like Washington, DC and San Francisco, police are performing stop and frisk searches of people and confiscating or destroying condoms they find. Unused condoms are also being used as evidence in criminal proceedings.
In a 2010 NYC Department of Health survey of people who were or were perceived to be involved in the sex trades, over …
Posted on April 19, 2012 at 10:00 am
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New Bill Seeks to Make Child Care “Work” for Welfare
While our NYC HRA Commissioner Doar is trying to make the college-aged kids (“adult dependents’) work for household HASA assistance, a new bill was introduced in Congress that would make the child rearing that a single parent does count as “work” for the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program (commonly known as welfare).
The Women’s Option to Raise Kids Act (WORK Act) was introduced today by Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), would “amend TANF law to recognize the critical job of raising children age three or younger as work. Under the legislation, low-income parents could work, receive job training, search for work, or raise their children until they are school-aged without fear of losing TANF …
Posted on April 18, 2012 at 4:17 pm
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ADAP Watch: AIDS Drug Wait List Hits 3,097
As of April 12th, the wait list to receive lifesaving AIDS medication through the nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Programs had hit 3,097 people across 10 states.
The number of people waiting to receive medication through state-run AIDS drug programs has increased more than 5,000 percent since August 2009, according to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The federal government has reacted with little urgency, however, allotting just $25 million in additional dollars to the program for FY 2012.
To help readers keep tabs on the growing ADAP crisis, we are now posting the ADAP Watch—the document that tracks increasing cuts to the program—each …
Posted on April 17, 2012 at 12:13 pm
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My Advocacy Trip To Albany For GENDA
I was extremely proud and happy to be a part of a large group of Housing Works members, both staff and clients, who drove to and from Albany from NYC on Tuesday, 3/13/12. Our mission had been to meet with various New York state senators and assemblymen/women to promote GENDA – Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. Our focus during the meetings had been to inform and remind our NY politicians that GENDA is, at its core, a human rights and civil rights issue and that we, as supporters of the bill only want these basic civil rights acknowledged and upheld for our transgender and gender non-conforming sisters and brothers.
The entire trip gave me and all in attendance a sense of …
Posted on April 16, 2012 at 12:11 pm
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