Author Archives: DREDF

Letter From the Disability Community to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky

January 13, 2022

Dear Director Walensky,

The undersigned organizations write in response to your comments on Friday, January 7th, 2022.

Together we represent millions of people with disabilities, patients, and people with chronic illnesses across the United States, and we are extremely concerned by your comments. People with disabilities and pre-existing conditions have been disproportionately killed by COVID-19. This is particularly true for those who live in congregate settings. Each of these deaths is a devastating loss to families, friends and to our broader communities. Your comments about the results of a research study referred to the fact that a disproportionate number of deaths due to COVID-19 occurred among "people who were unwell to begin with" as "encouraging news". Weunderstand you were speaking about a research study and that segments of your remarks were cut by ABC from the aired interview. Your full remarks were subsequently released, and our concerns remain. [...]

DREDF Urges the Biden Administration to Rescind Georgia’s Section 1332 Waiver

January 12, 2022
On January 7, 2022, DREDF provided comment on Georgia's approved Section 1332 Waiver, which permits the State to exit HealthCare.gov—a central source of enrollment and enrollment assistance for the roughly 500,000 Georgians who enroll in private health plans or Medicaid through the platform. DREDF has serious concerns that this waiver does not meet the requirements of Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act, as it will revert Georgia's healthcare enrollment into a system that forces consumers to search among a multitude of private, profit-drive web brokers and insurers in order to find coverage. This fragmented system will create new barriers to enrollment, eliminate neutral navigators, and result in increased enrollment in "junk" plans that do not meet an individual's needs. These harms will be particularly hard felt among Georgians with disabilities. We urge HHS and USDT to immediately rescind the waiver. [...]

Letter to the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD)

December 16, 2021
The undersigned are leaders and members of the disability community, and include representatives of key disability organizations. We write to urge the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to abandon its dangerous plan to file a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court in the Payan v. LACCD litigation. The proposed petition would challenge the very foundation of disability rights – that the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 prohibit unintentional forms of disability discrimination. The petition would conflict with LACCD's purported commitment to the inclusion of people with disabilities, and is not necessary to address and resolve the access problems demonstrated by the blind students who brought the case. Should the Supreme Court agree with LACCD that federal law prohibits only intentional forms of disability discrimination, more than 40 years of hard-fought-for civil rights of people with disabilities would be undone. [...]

Payan v LACCD Explainer

December 16, 2021
Payan v. Los Angeles Community College District is a case brought by blind students against the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). The students want the textbooks, handouts, websites, and other technology they use at school to be accessible to them. They sued in federal court under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. [...]

Disability Leaders Call on LA Community Colleges to Abandon Supreme Court Threat to Disability Rights

December 16, 2021
Leaders in disability rights across California issued a public demand calling on the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to abandon its reckless plan to file a petition with the United States Supreme Court on December 15, 2021 in the Payan v. LACCD case. Signatories include two former members of Congress who were authors of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Honorable Tony Coelho (D) and the Honorable Steve Bartlett (R), as well as the Honorable Dr. Judith Heumann, who served in the Clinton and Obama Administrations, and whose life story is featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary Crip Camp. The letter was first sent last week, but was made public when LACCD failed to respond. [...]

COVID Vaccines for Children with Disabilities with Dr. Noemi Spinazzi

December 13, 2021
Webinar recording of COVID Vaccines for Children with Disabilities with Dr. Noemi Spinazzi.
Pediatrician Noemi Spinazzi, MD is a primary care physician at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland and an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF. She provides primary care services to hundreds of children with complex care needs and developmental disabilities, and she founded a specialized clinic serving patients with Down syndrome. She is also the director of the developmental and behavioral pediatrics resident rotation at Children's Oakland. [...]

DREDF Honors the Life of Disability Rights Champion Senator Robert Dole

December 6, 2021
On April 14, 1969 – nearly three and a half months after being sworn in, Robert Dole, a freshman Senator from Kansas – delivered his first speech on the Senate floor. It was the 24th anniversary of the day he was wounded in Italy during the final days of World War II, and not coincidentally, Dole spoke about the discrimination faced by disabled Americans. [...]

CVS Health Partners with Disability Community in Commitment to Affordable and Equitable Access to Health Care

November 10, 2021
CVS Health, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and the National Council on Independent Living today announced that they are working together to seek policy solutions to protect equitable access to health care for all Americans and continue to protect the fundamental rights of people with disabilities. [...]

Disability and HIV Leaders Call on CVS Board to Drop Supreme Court Bid to Gut Civil Rights

November 3, 2021
Signatories demanding that CVS cease and desist include: the Honorable Dr. Judith Heumann, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, and is featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution; Jeff Crowley, who served as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy for President Obama, the Honorable Tony Coelho, former member of Congress and a primary sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and the leadership of more than one dozen national disability and HIV organizations. [...]