State must save In-Home Supportive Services
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_20814750/mark-romoser-state-must-save-home-supportive-servicesThe In-Home Supportive Services program (IHSS) is one example. We know this program keeps people in their homes and out of nursing homes. It has proven time and again to be a model of efficiency. IHSS allows people to stay out of nursing homes at an annual cost of $9,924, versus the $60,000 to $80,000 annual cost of institutionalization.
The Governor proposes a 7 percent cut to IHSS, on top of last year's 3.6 percent cut, plus the elimination of domestic and related services if housing is shared. IHSS hours are already at the minimum needed for seniors and people with disabilities to stay at home safely. We must do everything possible to keep people in their homes and turn to institutions only as a last resort.
Forcing seniors and people with disabilities out of their homes and into institutions is not only morally reprehensible, it's illegal. In the 1999 Olmstead decision, the Supreme Court ruled that institutionalizing people with disabilities who want to and can live in the community constitutes discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Who is this guy?
Oh, wait a minute, it's me! 
(although what I did was basically edit and rework a speech my boss had goven earlier in the week)
= new reply since forum marked as read
you know where to find us.
edit: Also please PM me as to which home that was, so we can make that stop. 
LOL! It was my 5ft Mom with a heavy accent and me watching that her elbows didn't knock anyone over in government offices in extra white Sunnyvale. Oh, my. It took two years for us to get approval to have oxygen at home.
The last time my grandma had a little stroke at home, the Sunnyvale police tried to steal her -- to put her in the hospital. The trip could have killed her and there was nothing anyone could do for her there. My mom mistakenly called 911 for OXYGEN because Mami's breathing was labored and we were still waiting for APPROVAL. There ensued a now legendary fight between Rosie and the SPD for possession of my poor granny. The paramedics said, she doesn't need oxygen, she's breathing. 
Meanwhile, the paramedics said they were required to transport and we said, oh, no, ya don't.
Mom and I wedged ourselves in the front door and denied the PD entry when they showed up in four cars. lol
They told Mom she needed to prove she was her mother's daughter. i have no idea what difference that would have made. lol
We finally won out after several calls to supervisors from the neighbor's house (Mom wouldn't let them in to use the phone) and my granny eventually passed peacefully at home. But, if we had had an OXYGEN tank, let alone an aide and the badges that go with that, all those nice young men in their uniforms could have just skipped the whole circus. Those were also the days when it was so hard to get at home palliative care for seniors that my mom, who never smoked weed in her life and was in AA, grew pot in the back yard so she could give Mami some in tea.
Let's please not go back to that sh!t.
