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Good day, everyone,
Thank you very much for your
support and hard work on the NOEWAIT campaign to eliminate the waitlist
for Developmental Disability Services and achieve portability of
services across state boundaries. There are currently 7,400
signatures on our petition! We plan to present the petition
to the President, Congress and selected Governors in October.
Many of you wrote very compelling comments about the implications of
being on a waitlist for you and your family members, and we plan on
sharing your stories to make the case to our elected leaders as to why
waitlists and lack of portability are such a significant problem.
We ask that you contact everyone in
your networks, including your family and friends, and ask them to sign
the petition if they have not done so already. We plan to
close out the petition on September 30, 2009, and we hope to have
10,000 signatures by then. This will be our final push to
collect as many signatures as we can.
We also wanted to tell you that,
along with a few other groups, we will be meeting with representatives
of the federal government's Center for Medicaid Services, which is
responsible for administering and funding services for people with
Developmental Disabilities, in an effort to figure out ways to
eliminate the waitlist. As these talks proceed, we will keep
you informed of important developments.
Again, thank you for your support
of our efforts at NOEWAIT and please let us know how we can help you in
your advocacy efforts to eliminate waitlists and gain portability of
services.
Below is an announcement you may
want to send to networks, your family and friends, and place in
newsletters and bulletins.
PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS
MESSAGE, INCLUDING THIS REQUEST TO CIRCULATE IT FURTHER, TO ALL
LISTSERVS IN WHICH YOU ARE INVOLVED AND TO ALL OF YOUR
FRIENDS.
NOEWAIT'S PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
The National Organization to End the Waitlist (NOEWAIT) has a petition
directed to the President and Members of Congress to eliminate
waitlists for individuals with developmental disabilities and
allow for the continuation/portability of services across state lines.
1. PLEASE GO TO THIS WEB SITE AND SIGN THE PETITION
2. PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS MESSAGE, INCLUDING THIS REQUEST TO
CIRCULATE IT FURTHER, TO ALL LISTSERVS IN WHICH YOU ARE INVOLVED AND TO
ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS.
3. PLEASE PLACE THIS NOTICE IN ALL NEWSLETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS
Please email noewait@noewait.net
to keep updated as to the progress of this petition.
Circulate this in any way you can. Copy it and take it to conferences
and meetings.
Sincerely,
Ethan Ellis
President and Chief
Organizer