The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee recently released a report, which investigated 50 states progress made on community integration of persons with disabilities since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law 14 years ago.

Results show that many states are not living up to the ADA mandate of community integration.

The HELP Committee, Chaired by Tom Harkin, made several key policy recommendations. One strongly urges the DOJ to expand its efforts to investigate segregated employment settings:

"DOJ should expand its Olmstead enforcement efforts, to include investigations of segregated employment settings for individuals with disabilities and the inappropriate placement of young people with disabilities in nursing homes, especially in states that are in the bottom quartile of spending on HCBS and/or for discrete subpopulations."

The HELP Committee also summarized in its report states' experiences working with stakeholders to boost implementation of Olmstead and ADA. Below is how our state reported its success working with key stakeholders:

"Massachusetts involved stakeholders in all aspects of planning for and implementation of Its Olmstead initiatives. The Commonwealth's experience in creating its Olmstead plan exemplifies how engaged stakeholders can add valuable perspective to create a better product. In particular, Massachusetts cited stakeholder involvement in decreasing the number of ICFs and developing the "Duals Demonstration" to integrate Medicare and Medicaid."

The report bolsters the significance of this issue and may help illustrate some of the pressures being felt.

HELP Committee report can be found here.