President Obama Releases Agenda to Address Disability Concerns
President Obama Releases Agenda to Address Disability Concerns
Coming on the heels of his inauguration, President Barack Obama released Jan. 20 his agenda for ensuring equal rights for Americans with disabilities.
The plan addresses four issues:
- Education: Obama and Vice President Joe Biden call to fund the IDEA, early intervention for children with disabilities and universal screening. They "will also authorize a comprehensive study of students with disabilities and issues relating to transition to work and higher education."
- Health care: Obama and Biden seek to restore and enforce the ADA, fund the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007, improve mental health care, and provide "affordable, accessible health care for all."
- Employment: The administration intends to impose new laws "that require the federal government and its contractors to employ people with disabilities," offer accommodations to private-sector employees to hire people with disabilities, support small businesses owned by people with disabilities, and encourage "employers to use existing tax benefits to hire more workers with disabilities."
- Residences: Obama and Biden intend to enforce the Community Choice Act of 2007, streamline the Social Security approval process, and create a "national insurance program to help adults who have or develop functional disabilities to remain independent and in their communities."
Obama and Biden also specifically addressed autism and provided three key points of action:
- Boost funding for autism research, treatment, screenings, public awareness and support services.
- Improve lifelong autism treatments, interventions and services.
- Enforce universal screening of all infants and rescreening for all 2-year-olds.
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