HAPPY 32ND ANNIVERSARY ADA!
Throughout the summer, we are publishing the NDNRC Update on a biweekly basis.
Tuesday, July 26 marks the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)! Throughout this month we have been marking the ADA Anniversary with a series of Facebook/YouTube Live interviews with members of our board who have disabilities. You can check out these interviews on both our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Links to the two interviews we have conducted thus far are as follows:
- July 13: Michael Hoenig
- July 20: Lisa Iezzoni
On July 28, we will be conducting an interview with Amy Houtrow at 3:00 PM ET. This interview will be live streamed on both our Facebook page and YouTube channel. Additionally, you can read more about this interview series and what we’re doing to celebrate Disability Pride Month throughout July in our news item.
As part of our partnership with Community Catalyst, we have a project which highlights opportunities for people with disabilities to get access to health coverage through Medicaid or the ACA marketplace and that also highlights the important coverage which comes with coverage through the ACA marketplace. As part of this project, we have resources like the image to the right which highlight Disability Pride Month. These graphics are available in the Community Catalyst Outreach Hub.
In April, we reported that the Secretary of Health and Human Services had extended the Public Health Emergency (PHE) that was in place for the COVID-19 pandemic. Last Friday, Secretary Becerra announced another 90-day extension to the PHE. One of the key things this means for people with disabilities is the fact that states are required to provide continuous coverage through Medicaid and Medicaid redeterminations are not being done. This means that the earliest that Medicaid redeterminations would start would be mid-October.
One of the concerns that the end of the PHE raises is how the unwinding of the continuous coverage under Medicaid will occur. CMS has a resource page available on Medicaid.gov which includes a lot of information for how this will occur. This includes a communications toolkit which is available in both English and Spanish.
If you missed it in our last newsletter, a new national suicide and crisis lifeline went into effect this past Saturday (July 16) meaning that all devices are now able to call the new 988 lifeline. To read more about this new resource, check out the following websites:
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 988 Resource Page
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Last week, our partners at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) hosted a webinar entitled “How (and Why) to Build Customized Plan Selection Resources”. The webinar has been archived and you can view the slides or video recording.
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) did a lot to make health insurance more affordable by raising tax credits available to consumers to help pay for premiums. Those enhanced subsidies end at the end of this year and the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms has released a blog post which examines what it would mean to end the enhanced subsidies under ARPA.
If you missed it in our previous newsletters, the University of Kansas is once again conducting its National Survey on Health and Disability. They are especially in need of individuals to participate who are from southern states and/or who identify as male. To learn more about this survey, check out our news item.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.