I should have held onto the emotional email that I sent to the New York
State ACB chapter the other day after reading about how ACB is going to
Washington DC to do its usual lobbying for things like expanding Medicare to
pay for a demonstration project in which the costs of CCTV's are reimbursed.
The basic thrust of my email was, Doesn't ACB realize that domestic programs
are being cut and that the only budget item getting a raise is military
spending? Doesn't ACB realize that there are Republican majorities in the
House and Senate with a few additional acquiescent Democrats who won't
approve any spending for public services of any kind? And I suggested that
what blindness advocacy groups should be doing right now, is figuring out
how they can cooperate to provide services for blind children, adults
needing rehab services, and the blind elderly, because government funded
services are drying up. So now I see a very neutral announcement from ACB
about the Republicans' new health care act, very neutral, with a link so
that people can compare the ACA as it is now with the proposed new bill and
a mention that coverage for previous illnesses and for adult children up to
26 years are retained in the new bill. But ACB is too timid to say outright
that the funding for the proposed new bill is such that these parts of the
bill can't possibly be implemented. ACB doesn't want to go out on a limb so
it refers its members to Kaiser Permanente or some such report. ACb is
acting just like the Democratic senators who approved so many of Trump's
appointees to give the illusion of normality. What will happen if all the
federal funding Is removed from state services and the states can't pay for
services for the blind? What will happen to NLS when positions which are
empty, are eliminated? My last sentence in my email to New York ACB was,
"Wake up everybody!" No one even referred to my email, let alone, answered
it. Does ACB think that if it's very well behaved, somehow the Republicans
will behave humanely to blind people? Knowing NFB, it is probably trying
to make friends with Steve Bannon.
Miriam
