Alright, so if you follow this blog or live in Minnesota and have a connection to autism, then you heard me talk about them or read here about this gang of so called autism parents that seem to wear Red T-shirts to bully and intimidate policy makers and try to intimidate low income and minority autism families. They take no prisoners and will take candy from a toddler without blinking.
Unfortunately, they seem to lie and harass at whatever cost by twisting existing research and the truth about autism therapy in Minnesota. They also overwhelmingly get their kids covered for ABA therapy through the state Medicaid agency while the low income managed care kids get denied for the same services by the state Medicaid agency.
They are mostly middle/upper income and some very wealthy who own the very same autism centers and clinics that often don’t take minority autism kids even though the funding is public. Yet, they are under the impression Medicaid funding is for them. I kid you not. They also seem to have the Minnesota Disability Law Center which is connected to Minnesota Legal Aid which is suppose to help —– guess who…. the low income, yet somehow only seems to fight to give more butter to the buttered up. Again, I kid you not. Our state Legal aid office for disability issues is bent on hell helping middle/upper income autism families while the low income who are mostly minorities are told to take a flying leap by them.
How is it MDLC through legal aid keeps getting Federal and State funding to help the poor if they are only interested in helping wealthy autism families? I hope someone looks into that, more on that on later posts.
At any rate, the red t-shirt wearing gang found another sucker legislature this session – Sen Clausen to write yet another bill to override the fair and just bill that passed last year by state legislatures & signed into law by Gov Dayton which said autism therapy will be paid for children on Medicaid up to age 18 and will have an independent assessment and evaluation among other good things. Because nothing is ever good enough and they are never satisfied – they came back for more. They want to take again from the poor, homeless, minorities – all for them who ironically can afford a lof of these therapies. They want to decrease their parent pay to …..wait for it and drum roll pleassss up to 975% of the Federal poverty guidelines. I think that will probably qualify the Koch brothers and maybe even Bill and Melinda Gates. I am always surprised how we are told to believe the poor and minorities hog the services. Well, let me tell ya – not in autism and not in Minnesota. The very well off and well to do hog ABA autism therapy by using Medicaid funds to the tune of $100,000 per child per year while the poor and low income are put on managed care Ucare, Medica and Health Partners who then DENY the same autism ABA therapy. I kid you not. Double Standard – you betcha.
Never mind the 1915i waiver which is what our state was authorized to provide autism ABA therapy last session only goes up to 300% of the Federal poverty guideline. These greedy, red t-shirt wearing gangs want to bully us and take more and probably risk the Federal government denying our autism therapy waiver being approved by CMS. Imagine their level of arrogance and ignorance in a greedy and stupid kind of way.
I personally contacted Sen Clausen and wanted to ask why he would write such stupid and discriminative bill for the haves while the have-nots will get screwed. I also wanted to ask isn’t he a Democrat because they are the ones that tell us (fare share – pay equally and fairly blah blah). Well, not surprisingly once he found out my views were against his bias policy – he played the usual MN DFL game which is ignore and pretend the poor do not exist. Unless of course during elections when they come to our communities and feed us bunch of useless words like the rich should pay their fair share.
Sen Clausen, let me clear some facts for you and please take off your diluted glasses – you are taking away from the poor autism families and giving it to the wealthy autism families who can afford the therapy. To me you are a hypocrite and preach sugar words – yet practice salty policies. In other words, if you write bills like a duck, meet with ducks, talk like a duck – then you are a duck. Sen Clausen can not preach “fair” share then write bills like SF 2837 (take a read in this bill and see for yourself). I tell ya – these greedy folks never seem to amaze me. They are soooo predictable, take from the poor and give it to the rich. How nice and how will Sen Clausen sell this in his next election. How will Sen Bakk and Company sell this to the thousands of poor autism families they seem to throw under the bus every session. Let’s explain in laymen’s terms how the parental fee works if you have a child with a disability including autism who is on MA (Medicaid) and gets ABA therapy which as you can see costs millions of dollars. For instance, if your AGI is six figures of $100,000 per year then your parental monthly fee would be 423.34. Keep in mind the average salary for Minnesota is $51,000 and the fee would be almost non-existent. Don’t believe me – here is where you can plug your income and dependents to get your parental fee. Click here:
What does this all mean? In a nutshell, the h
aves want to take more from the have-nots and want the state to lower their parental fee – even though they can afford it. Instead they want the homeless to get less, the DD waivers to have even longer wait list, nonprofits to suffer more, the youth programs in Cedar to get even less resources. All for what – to give more Barri to Niman Barri leh. That is right as the saying goes (nin barri leh ayaa barri kale loogu daraa). The saddest of all is the legislators that are helping with this are the ones that preach fair share and get almost all of the minority and poor votes in Minnesota. Insanity is for voting for the same policy makers and expecting different policies. Racial disparity exist in Minnesota because of exactly policies like this HF3172 which is the appropriations bill and is authored by non other than Sen Cohen – Confederation Somali Community of MN board member and Rep Carlson. Ironically, CSCM is at the brink of being broke while Sen Cohen wants to give more to the wealthy, but tell CSCM to drop dead. Think about that for a minute and kick him out of our community board. He is useless.
Finally, unless something has changed in the Federal system in the last few months, ABA autism therapy is NOT part of EPSDT because when Congress wrote children’s Medicaid services, autism nor ABA were as prevalent. Therefore, states do not have the authority to change or amend EPSDT by adding ABA therapy. They can only add it through their 1915c or 1915i waivers which also require Feds approval since portion of the funding comes from them. Nevertheless, in hillbilly land Minnesota red t-shirt wearing world – such policies are meaningless and they keep asking clueless legislators to add ABA to EPSDT. They can’t – it must be done in Congress. Imagine if they used their energy to advocate in Congress and asked changes to CMS rules for providing autism therapies instead of bullying and intimidating the poor, low income and minority autism Minnesota families.
You see – according to Sec Sebelius and she would know when IACC asked if ABA can be part of both public and private insurance market – she sent us this letter. If you read carefully, it does not mention states taking upon themselves to change the Federal EPSDT rules because that would be absurd and undoable. EPSDT funding is from Federal/State which means the changes MUST come from the feds and Congress. In addition, to add more silly salt here – these red t-shirt wearing gang probably thought EPSDT stood for a bus stop in North Mpls few weeks ago and had no idea even what IACC stood for, let alone any other Federal autism policies. Oh and this is the current autism policies in the country in case you really wanted to learn.
Above words do not reflect any agency, committee or candidate.
Thanks!
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Minority Advocate from every valley, mountain and river.