TAX HELP MONTANA
On January 19, 2010, the Real Economic Impact Tour stopped in Great Falls to discuss its 2010 Disability Initiative in which free tax return preparation is available to persons with disabilities. The event, sponsored by Rural Dynamics, was designed to publicize the Internal Revenue Service’s initiative to provide certified volunteers (called Volunteer Income Tax Assistants) to the historically undeserved disability community. In fact, their records indicate that they were able to reach less than one percent of the Montana disability community with this service last year.
Two staff persons from Disability Rights Montana attended the event and encourage any persons with disabilities to take advantage of the free service to avoid tax preparer fees and perhaps obtain a refund. For more information go to www.montanafreefile.org.
Physician Assisted Death
Update 11.17.09: A video of Bob Liston from ADAPT speaking about Physician Assisted Suicide.
Establish a constitutional right to live with dignity, not physician assisted suicide.
On December 5, 2008, Judge Dorothy McCarter, Montana First Judicial District Court Judge, ruled the Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally ill patient to die with dignity. That a patient may use the assistance of his physician to obtain a lethal dose of medication that the patient may take when he/she decides to terminate his/her life. The Court also concluded that the patient’s physician is protected from liability under the State’s homicide statutes. See Baxter v State of Montana.
Disability Rights Montana disagrees with the lower court’s decision and wrote an amicus brief urging the Montana Supreme Court to reverse the District Court’s Decision.
DRM believes that the lower court erred in its failure to consider the impact of a constitutional right to end ones life in a flawed health care system where there is no balancing constitutional right to receive healthcare. People with disabilities disproportionately live in poverty and have limited health care. Therefore the decision to seek assistance in dying may not be the result of free choice but dictated by limits on insurance coverage and economic pressure. People who might overcome their despair with supports may instead choose death as a result of the lack of feasible alternatives. This, we believe, would be coercive.
Disability Rights Montana investigated 11 situations in which the withdrawal of life sustaining treatment was being considered for people with disabilities. These 11 people were determined by their treating physician to be terminal, however, upon closer examination, only one of the eleven was in fact in a terminal condition.
Nine of these eleven people are alive today because of DRM’s intervention. We documented these cases in a written report, Withdrawal of Life Sustaining Treatment, Eleven Case Summaries. Based on our experience in these eleven cases, the lower court is mistaken in its assertion that “whether a patient is terminally ill can be determined by a physician.” A diagnosis of a terminal condition carries significant weight and influences a patient and family about further treatment. When the diagnosis is wrong or based on the assessed quality of life, there is a substantial risk that a person with a disability, who is not terminal, will be prematurely and mistakenly offered assisted death instead of offered active life sustaining treatment.
Until Montana establishes a constitutional right to health care, to include palliative and hospice care, a right to physician assisted suicide or aid in dying cannot be implemented without substantial risk of premature death to people with disabilities and people who are economically disadvantaged.
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Marriage Penalty
People First of Montana Initiates a National Challenge to Change the Social Security Provisions
People First of Montana, a statewide organization whose members are self-advocates is asking for your help to change the Social Security provisions that applies to SSI recipients who want to marry. Like most Americans, people with disabilities fall in love and wish to get married. However, most do not get married because of the Social Security provisions that reduces their monthly benefits. This is called the Marriage Penalty.
The SSI amounts have increased since this Marriage Penalty Video was recorded. Now many people with disabilities live on a $674 per month federal SSI benefit, which is still below the poverty level. When two people with disabilities of the opposite sex get married or hold themselves out to be married, their combined benefit as a couple drops to $1011. That is a net loss of $337 or roughly 25% of their income for getting married or living like they are married.
It is hard for one person with a disability to live on $674 per month. It is even harder for two people to live on $1011. The $337 penalty for falling in love and being together makes the difference in whether they pay their utilities or buy their medication for the month. It is often not enough to do both.
People First of Montana is asking our representatives in Congress to consider its request and help change the Social Security provisions that make it difficult to enjoy one of the most fundamental rights of our humanity – the sharing of love openly through marriage. As a first step you can express your support by signing the on-line Petition by clicking here.
People First of Montana is also organizing a national work group to collaborate in this effort. If you are interested in being a part of this work group, please call People First of Montana at Special Friends Advocacy at 1-406-756-5488 or Disability Rights Montana at 1-800-245-4743 or e-mail us at advocate@disabilityrightsmt.org.
