People With Disabilities Fear Service Cuts as Trump’s DOJ Questions Legal Protections

The Justice Department has issued a legal opinion arguing that federal disability rights law doesn't require states to offer home or community-based care as an alternative to institutionalization — a reversal of the reasoning behind the Supreme Court's 1999 Olmstead ruling, which held that unjustified institutionalization violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Advocacy groups tell KFF Health News the shift could weaken legal protections for roughly forty million disabled adults and five million disabled children, and several Republican-led states, including Texas, Alaska, and Florida, have already cited the opinion in ongoing lawsuits over disability service mandates. HHS says its commitment to enforcing civil rights laws is unchanged, but Senate Democrats led by Tammy Duckworth have introduced a resolution calling on the department to rescind the opinion. How far the reversal actually reaches will likely be decided in the courts.

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