Other testimonies delved further into the impact private health insurance and government policy have on retirees and long-term care for the disabled.

Barbara Toomer, founder of ADAPT and the Disabled Rights Action Committee, told board members that neither Medicare nor private insurance provide adequate help for long-term care needs. Rather, the disabled are forced into prisonlike nursing homes, she said.

"If you don't liberalize people with disabilities in the community, you're sentencing them to death," the wheelchair-bound senior said. "We cannot go on in the United States incarcerating people because of disabilities. All we are asking is for the government to free our people."

During the time the board was out for deliberation, Brodhead said he didn't ask anyone with opposing viewpoints to testify because those people already have adequate voice and influence.

The only people who aren't suffering from the current system are the massive corporations, he said, and they can afford all the advertising and lobbying they want in order to get their message out. Brodhead's group wanted to give the "working poor" a chance to tell their stories, he said.

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E-mail: RPalmer@desnews.com