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