Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

July/August, 1996

Correspondence

June 11, 1996

The Honorable Jim McCrery 225 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-1805

Dear Congressman McCrery:

As we have consistently stated in our correspondence with your office, in our congressional testimonies and in our Position Paper, NADE supports cash benefits for children whose disabilities meet, equal or functionally equal the medical listings. As the functional equals concept requires us to evaluate all impairments and their impact on function, we do not believe it is necessary to include additional regulatory language describing the evaluation of children who can not be tested because of their young age or who have a physical or mental impairment not explicitly included in the regulations. These conditions would be evaluated under the equals provision. Adding additional regulatory language in the two areas would not only be redundant, it could be interpreted as giving additional weight to functional subjectivity and inconsistency which has fueled many of the problems with the current SSI childhood disability program.

Sincerely,

Larry DeVantier NADE President

Martha Marshall NADE Legislative Committee Chair