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Ahhh, this was a hard battle – to save the Minnesota autism committee which is a cost free task force that has parents, advocates, providers and state agency reps. It was charged to write and implement an autism statewide plan and is suppose to sunset next year.

OK, so – I have been very critical of Autism Speaks and their narrow views on autism racial disparity. Autism Speaks (AS) has made a habit of only fighting and advocating for those with private insurance while those with public Medicaid insurance were ignored by AS. And, as we all know – low income families mostly have Medicaid and they are disproportionately minorities. 

Yesterday Thursday May 8th 2014, Sen Benson moved to amend the HHS policy omnibus and not eliminate the cost free, parent empowered autism task force and the following are the Senate floor votes. 40 YES for Autism families and 22 NO against autism families. 

Alright – so if you follow Minnesota local politics then you know the session is almost done at the State Capitol. And, as they say those with butter always get more butter. In Minnesota as I have covered several times in this blog – DHS (Medicaid) pays ABA or Autism early intervention therapy for children on MA through TEFRA or fee for service MA. By the same token, low income children with autism on managed care, such as Ucare, Medica, etc don’t cover ABA or Autism therapy. The good thing is we changed this bias and prejudice policy last session whereby the state legislature passed an early intervention autism therapy for ALL kids regardless of if they are on Managed care or Tefra.

If you have TEFRA, you pay a parental fee which to me seems fair and just because it is based on your income, dependents, etc. Well, that does not seem good enough for the upper/middle income autism families and they have asked their favorite legislator – Rep Norton to take millions of dollars from the HHS (health and human services) budget to lower their parental fee. Now keep in mind majority of these families already hog the HHS budget because more TEFRA kids get ABA therapy, more TEFRA kids have DD waivers, etc. Somehow that is not enough and they are never satisfied.  

So, they managed with the help of Rep Huntley (chair of hhs finance cmte) to add four million dollars to the budget from the house. Now – there is a silver lining here because the Senate does not have this budget and the governor does not have this money in his budget as well. Then comes conference committees where they negotiate to come up with one budget that can be signed into law. That is where we are now. The bill number is HF3172, CONFEREES: SENATE: Cohen; Tomassoni; Wiger; Bonoff; Lourey – HO– USE: Carlson Sr.; Huntley; Mahoney; Marquart; Wagenius. This means the senate and the governor’s position are the RIGHT & FAIR position. On the other hand, the house wants ONLY (mind you) wealthier autism families to get help. It does not even include wealthier families whose children have other disabilities. Think about that for a minute. How can they be so cruel and in humane. I think it is selfish for any group to say give us more even though we already get more at the expense of the poor and other disabled children. I honestly can’t see how any legislator would vote for something like that, yet they majority of the house did which is how this extra money ended up in the big HF3172 appropriations bill.

Have you ever heard of ignorance is a bliss. Well, sometimes I wish I did not understand as much autism policy because it only makes me frustrated and sad. Last night, if you can believe I was the ONLY BLACK person in this soooo important finance committee where so many other important items and funding gets decided. I looked around and noticed – no one looked like me or reflected the diversity of Minnesota. There is only one Black committee administrator Abou Amara which is also very sad because trying to explain our position to so many of them is like explaining the pain of child birth to a man. It is impossible. I mean, I get the usual – we understand, we know, blah blah. But for someone who does not reflect low income and minority autism families to understand my words are so hard and painfully frustrating. Yet, no one in committee or staff notices the lack of diversity or seem to even care. Keep in mind the controlling party this year is the party that preaches to minority communities – fair share, we care, equality, we are in your corner, yada and yada.

So, you see ignorance is a bliss. Not knowing how your legislator votes and what he/she does is better than knowing about their bias and racism policies. Let me explain about what I mean about racism and what makes a person racist. If you write unequal policies, allocate resources unequally, give more to certain districts, counties, communities and give less to others who have more minorities – in my book that makes you racist. In other words, if you write like a duck, speak to only ducks, eliminate like a duck and allocate like a duck – I am sorry but you are a DUCK. Mr. Sterling was labeled a racist because he said hurtful and mean words, but writing hurtful and mean policies by taking from the have nots who are disproportionately minorities and giving to the wealthier who are mostly Caucasians makes you what? Think about it and look yourself in the mirror.

As they say, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. So, I will be watching them like a hawk to see who votes for equality and who votes for inequality in this conference committee. I will also in different post write who voted for this bill on the house floor in the first place. In other words, Norton can write bias polices, but other legislators could’ve refused to support her bias request. Sadly, majority of House Reps did not.

Here is the language of the fiscal note side by side (autism funding is on line 153, but if you are a minority or low income read the whole thing and notice how your area fared, then get mad by voting out those that short changed your issues). As you see the senate has zero, the governor has zero (we support their positions) and the House has over 4 million dollars to give the buttered up autism families. Imagine how many waivers and other support can be used for this money for those that truly need it. I have seen Somali autism families on wait list for a DD waiver for 10 years. Yet, the buttered up want more butter while the dry gets shipped to dry land of nothing for you.

Above words do not reflect any committee, agency or candidate.

Thanks!

Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Minority Advocate

I had to make a correction to this post because Abeler had two amendments that day for this bill and it was not posted correctly on the house research site. As a result, I had the wrong vote count which some of the legislatures got upset and rightfully so, and contacted me to correct my blog. As a result of my rookie mistake – I apologize to Rep Clark, Rep Loeffler and Rep Ward and I thank them for their vote to continue the autism committee in Minnesota. I think it takes guts and heart to break partisan vote and vote for your constituents because after all they are the ones who voted for you in the first place. These three ladies surely have guts and heart. In addition, there were other MN DFLers who also voted to keep this committee and we thank them very much as well! Autism is a medical condition affecting lots of children and adults and we must always remember that.

Therefore, below is the new adjusted and corrected post with the right vote count.

OK, so for this legislative session year – there are only two autism bills both by Rep Norton and both bills want to screw low income autism families and minority autism children. In this post, I will concentrate on the bill that wants to eliminate the cost free autism task force which has supported many Somalis and under-served autism children and their families.

HF 2402 from MN House of Reps version wants to eliminate the free autism task force that has state agencies, advocates, providers and parents. Luckily, Rep Abeler introduced an amendment to NOT eliminate and take that language from the HF 2402 which is the Health Policy Omnibus.

Below are the legislators who voted to keep this task force which has been very important to Somali autism community as well as those that voted to eliminate.

Rep Abeler’s Amendment was not adopted because we lost this battle 61 votes were for us and 70 votes were against autism families. I have put their name, their vote, their party and highlighted those that have higher Somali autism families and/or represent high minority districts or someone is running against them this year in 2014 election – which gives  Somali autism families a reason to help their opponent. Please pay attention to see if your district legislator is included in the NO’s and if you have a child, relative or a friend with autism – then don’t waste your next vote. By the same token, if your representative is in the YES list, be sure to call them and thank them for their support & remember to vote for them.

MN House Floor Vote On Monday May 5, 2014.

Those Who Voted YES To Keep The Minnesota Autism Task Force and To Support Somali Autism Children Were:

Abeler (R), Albright (R), Anderson, M. (R), Anderson, P. (R), Anderson S. (R), Barrett (R), Benson, M (R), Clark (D), Cornish (R), Daudt (R), Davids (R), Dean (R), Dehn (D), Dettmer (D), Fabian (R), Franson (R), Garofalo (R), Green (R), Gunther (R), Hackbarth (R), Hamilton (R), Holberg (R), Hoppe (R), Howe (R), Isaacson (D), Johnson, B. (R), Kelly (R), Kieffer (R), Kiel (R), Kresha (R), Lenczewski (D), Loeffler (D), Lohmer (R), Loon (R), Mack (R), McDonald (R), MnNamara (R), Metsa (D), Myhra (R), Newberger (R), Nornes (R), O’Driscoll (R), O’Neill (R), Petersburg (R), Pugh (R), Rosenthal (D), Sanders (R), Sawatzky (D), Schomacker (R), Scott, (R), Selcer (D), Swedzinski (R), Theis (R), Torkelson (R), Uglem (R), Urdahl (R), Ward J.A.(D), Wills (R), Woodard (R), Zellers (R), Zerwas (R),

We appreciate those that voted for equality rather partisan politics. Thanks!

Those Who Voted NO To Eliminate The MN Autism Task Force and Were Against Somali Autism Children Were: Voting for the same people is stupid because their policy doesn’t change.

Because the House and Senate did not agree on the whole bill, it now goes to a Conference Committee where they will negotiate. The House Conferees for this are; Mack, Liebling, Loeffler, Morgan & Halverson.