Sunday, October 27, 2013

The Obama Adminstration Failed To Accompany Deaf Americans' Language Access for the ACA Law

In the meantime of the nearer deadline to January 1, 2014 for getting registered for the health insurance coverage among the millions and millions of uninsured individuals prior to the mandatory requirement by the Affordable Act Care of 2010 federal law known as the ACA or "ObamaCare".

The majority of Deaf American citizens and undocumented Deaf individuals still do not have any language access to understand the federal law for the health insurance coverage requirement or face the severe fine by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The federal government under President Obama's leadership and the Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, Kathleen Selbus surely failed the millions and millions of signing Deaf Americans and other deaf individuals whose lack the full language comphrension of the complicated ACA law without providing the full language access within the ACA website. The primary language among signing and culturally Deaf Americans are the use of American Sign Language (ASL).

The Affordable Care Act website clearly not provide the equal language access for the millions and millions of signing & culturally Deaf American citizens nor provide the gestural sign language for the  undocumented Deaf individuals.

The Obama Adminstration provided numerous language access from Arabic to Spanish language on the ACA website while failed to provide the equal language access for the signing & culturally Deaf Americans and undocumented Deaf individuals.

Other deaf individuals whose attended the non-traditional educational settings of the Deaf like the public / private schools or schools specialized in audio-verbal therapy (AVT) to deny the use of any sign language which many of them lack the full language development or understanding of many reading materials. Those educational settings often undermine many deaf students from reaching their language acquisition potentials. The following individuals end up relying upon the use of American Sign Language or other means of gestural languages to grasp the concept and understanding of any given subjects.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) also failed to ensure that the millions and millions of Deaf Americans and the undocumented Deaf individuals to have the full language access to the ACA website thru the use of  American Sign Language (ASL) and gestural sign language. NAD never did anything to make sure that the Deaf America to comply with the Affordable Care Act law before many Deaf Americans are innocently being fined.

Evidently, too many Deaf Americans and undocumented Deaf  individuals completely having such an anxiety attack or total misunderstandings of what the ACA law all about from the social media postings.

Handful of low-income Deaf Medicaid and Medicare recepitents' health insurance coverage have been unjustly taken away without any due process because many states trying to save $$ for other uninsured hearing individuals.

The National Association of the Deaf ( NAD) never give any assistance to the emotionally distressing and language-deprived Deaf individuals how to deal with the systematic exclusion of their given health insurance coverages meeting the poverty level guideline, ex. making the formal request for an appeal hearing to keep / continue their state health insurance coverage. The direct assistance were privately given by the author of this blog without getting paid or formally recognized.

ASLize yours,
Robert L. Mason ( RLM)
RLMDEAF