Voting Rights
Third Wednesday of the month @ 5:30-6:30pm EST
Highlights of what DDP has done to date in this issue area:
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Organized to get an Executive Directive from the Governor ensuring that disabled & chronically ill Michanders weren't put at the back of the line during rationed care.
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Seat at the Michigan Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force
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Pushing the State to provide emergency COVID information in accessible ways and with messaging specific to our diverse disability population.
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Pushing the state to track the data of disabled COVID patients, deaths and vaccine recipients.
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Organizing to make Detroit the first city in the US to vaccinate people with IDD early. Then formed and organized with #ComeThroughCounties coalition and Macomb made a similar decision. The state then followed suit.
DDP's policy recommendations to the city/county/state in this issue area:
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Capture, track, and report disability-related COVID-19 data.
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Through the MDHHS, enact an emergency rule that requires transparency of healthcare provider medical rationing plans, the review of such plans to ensure that no person is denied medical care on the basis of stereotypes, assessments of quality of life, or judgments about a person's relative “worth,” including judgements about a person's worth based on the presence or absence of disability, and that establishes a clear and concrete protocol for people with disabilities to follow if they are discriminated against in real-time.
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Ensure that their COVID-19 vaccination response is proactive, accessible (physically, geographically, informationally, financially), coordinated, and disability conscious.
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The City of Detroit should introduce access to low or no cost non-emergency medical transportation and mobility options for Detroit residents so that people without access to personal or public transportation have less barriers to attending to their mental health appointments.
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The State of Michigan should create and expand local programs like Michigan State Loan Repayment Program which repays student loans for new healthcare professionals working in rural and underserved areas.