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Examining The Social Security Tribunal’S Navigator Service: Access To Administrative Justice For Marginalized Communities, Laverne Jacobs, Sule Tomkinson

Law Publications

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This report provides the findings, analysis and recommendations of a research study conducted on the federal Social Security Tribunal’s Navigator Service (SST Navigator Service). The SST Navigator Service was established in 2019 for tribunal users without a professional representative. The study examines the use of the Navigator Service for Canada Pension Plan–Disability (CPP–Disability) appeals heard by the Income Security - General Division of the Social Security Tribunal.

This research study focuses on access to administrative justice on the …

Critical Tax Theory: Insights From The Us And Opportunities For All, Anthony C. Infanti, Bridget J. Crawford

Articles

At a moment when Australia -- and the world -- finds itself at a "critical juncture" as it reckons with a global pandemic as well as the inequalities that COVID-19 has laid bare, voicing -- and listening to -- critical tax perspectives has become more vital than ever. The economic impact of COVID-19 has precipitated talk of tax reform as nations consider how to pay for aid distributed during the pandemic and how to restart their economies. But more than just a time of crisis, the pandemic can be seen as an unexpected opportunity to break with a past plagued …

Substance Use Disorder, Discrimination, And The Cares Act: Using Disability Law To Strengthen New Protections, Kelly K. Dineen, Elizabeth Pendo

All Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic is having devastating consequences for people with substance use disorders (SUD). SUD is a chronic health condition—like people with other chronic health conditions, people with SUD experience periods of remission and periods of exacerbation and relapse. Unlike people with most other chronic conditions, people with SUD who experience a relapse may face criminal charges and incarceration. They are chronically disadvantaged by pervasive social stigma, discrimination, and structural inequities. People with SUD are also at higher risk for both contracting the SARS-CoV-19 virus and experiencing poorer outcomes. Meanwhile, there are early indications that pandemic conditions have led to …

Threats To Medicaid And Health Equity Intersections, Mary Crossley

Articles

2017 was a tumultuous year politically in the United States on many fronts, but perhaps none more so than health care. For enrollees in the Medicaid program, it was a “year of living precariously.” Long-promised Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act also took aim at Medicaid, with proposals to fundamentally restructure the program and drastically cut its federal funding. These proposals provoked pushback from multiple fronts, including formal opposition from groups representing people with disabilities and people of color and individual protesters. Opposition by these groups should not have surprised the proponents of “reforming” Medicaid. Both people of …

An Analysis Of The Universal Home Care Program: Considerations For Implementation With The Context Of Maine's Existing Ltss Programs, Eileen J. Griffin Jd, Elizabeth C. Gattine Jd, Louise Olsen, Stuart Bratesman Mpp

Disability & Aging

A citizen initiative on the November 2018 ballot (Question 1, An Act to Establish Universal Home Care for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities) would establish a "Universal Home Care Program" (UHC Program) to serve older adults and persons with a disability living in Maine. This report does not constitute either support for or opposition to the referendum but is intended as an independent assessment of how the UHC Program could be implemented if it were to be approved by Maine voters. This analysis focuses on the implications of the UHC Program within the context of the Medicaid and …

The Interplay Between Human Rights And Accessibility Laws: Lessons Learned And Considerations For The Planned Federal Accessibility Legislation, Laverne Jacobs

Law Publications

In this study, the author analyzes, comparatively, the administrative governance functions of legislation that provides accessibility standards in six jurisdictions that also offer legal protection from discrimination to people with disabilities: Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. The following governance functions were examined: a) creating accessibility standards, b) enforcing accessibility standards, c) enforcing decisions,d) encouraging compliance, e) raising public awareness (and promoting systemic culture change) and f) public education. The study was conducted with a view to understanding how human rights laws, principles and values can be used to …

Immigration And Disability In The United States And Canada, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

Disability arises from the dynamic between people’s physical and mental conditions andthe physical and attitudinal barriers in the environment. Applying this idea aboutdisability to United States and Canadian immigration law draws attention to barriers toentry and eventual citizenship for individuals who have disabilities. Historically, NorthAmerican law excluded many classes of immigrants, including those with intellectualdisabilities, mental illness, physical defects, and conditions likely to cause dependency.Though exclusions for individuals likely to draw excessive public resources and thosewith communicable diseases still exist in Canada and the United States, in recent yearsthe United States permitted legalization for severely disabled undocumented immigrantsalready in the …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

Medicaid Managed Care And Disability Discrimination Issues, Mary Crossley

Articles

This article examines issues potentially raised under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by states' decisions whether and how to include disabled Medicaid recipients in the massive shift towards Medicaid managed care. Part II briefly examines the special issues that disabled Medicaid recipients pose with respect to managed care enrollment. These include issues of cost, quality, access, and program design and implementation. Part III describes various approaches that state programs have taken or are proposing to take with respect to the enrollment of disabled Medicaid recipients in managed care. These approaches range from simply excluding the SSI population from managed …

Health Care Rationing And Disability Rights, Philip G. Peters Jr.

Faculty Publications

This article explores the extent to which federal disability rights law limits the use of effectiveness criteria to allocate health care, either alone or as a part of cost-effectiveness analyses. To be more precise, it considers the circumstances in which disability-based classifications by health plans which would otherwise violate the anti-discrimination laws can be legally and ethically defended by proof that the excluded treatments are less effective than those which are provided. Part I introduces the expanding use of effectiveness analysis in health care, explains its discriminatory potential, and reviews the Oregon experience. Part II outlines the current federal law …

Arbitrability In Recent Federal Civil Rights Legislation: The Need For Amendment, Douglas E. Abrams

Faculty Publications

This Article discusses the shortcomings inherent in the consideration and enactment of the arbitrability provisions of the ADA and the 1991 Civil Rights Act. As a threshold matter, Part II demonstrates that the latter Act's textual encouragement of arbitration indicates that Congress misapprehended the effect of Gilmer, which the Supreme Court had decided barely six months before the Act's passage. Specifically, this Part will argue that after Gilmer, textual encouragement of arbitration has little or no greater legal significance than textual silence would have. In the few decades before the decision, textual encouragement would have had significant impact because particular …