In The Politics of Autism, I discuss court cases involving the civil rights of people with autism and other disabilities.
At STAT, Timmy Broderick writes about the 25th anniversary of the Olmstead decision.
Prolonged, involuntary stays in institutions used to be the norm for people with disabilities, as books like “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” have portrayed. But after two Georgia women with mental illness and developmental disabilities sued to leave a state hospital, the Supreme Court decreed in 1999 that siloing people with disabilities in hospitals was discriminatory and a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This landmark ruling, known as the Olmstead decision, augured a shift away from institutional care for long-term services and towards the most integrated setting possible — treating people with disabilities not as outcasts but as community members who can make choices and decide their own futures. The name refers to the main defendant, Tommy Olmstead, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Resources at the time. Some experts refer to it as the Brown v. Board of Education for people with disabilities because of its dramatic expansion of civil rights in the face of forced segregation and a rejection of “separate but equal” institutions.
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Twenty-five years after the Olmstead decision, home and community-based services (HCBS) is the norm rather than the exception for Medicaid recipients. National Medicaid spending on HCBS routinely exceeds spending on institutional services, and nearly 10 million people received some form of HCBS in 2019. Most states now have “Olmstead plans” that sketch out how to further grow community care, too.
But those gains are unevenly distributed, and disability advocates have had to sue several states to ensure their compliance.
...
Twenty-five years after the Olmstead decision, home and community-based services (HCBS) is the norm rather than the exception for Medicaid recipients. National Medicaid spending on HCBS routinely exceeds spending on institutional services, and nearly 10 million people received some form of HCBS in 2019. Most states now have “Olmstead plans” that sketch out how to further grow community care, too.
But those gains are unevenly distributed, and disability advocates have had to sue several states to ensure their compliance.
