Legislative Agenda for the First Session of the 111th Congress

Long Term Services & Supports

To meet this challenge, the 111th Congress must:

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    • Expand, modernize, and, where appropriate, maintain national policies that provide individual supports. Such supports should encourage individual control of services, self-sufficiency, and personal responsibility among our constituents. Such services and supports must be: 
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          • consumer controlled;
          • inclusive of personal assistance services; 
          • designed and implemented to meet individual needs;
          • widely accessible; and 
          • provided in the community. 

Such a system should avoid the need for people to impoverish themselves to qualify for services;

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    • Support legislation to create a national, long term supports insurance program that is premium-based and non-means-tested, that will cover most workers, and that will provide cash benefits to assist beneficiaries in avoiding the need to impoverish themselves to qualify for Medicaid;
    • Ensure adequate funds for federal monitoring and implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision; 
    • Establish pilot projects to encourage home health agencies to utilize home monitoring and communications technologies; and
    • Amend federal law to allow military survivor benefits to be paid to a trust established for an individual with disabilities, to allow for the long-term support of the individual.