This week on the Disabilities Beat, we continue with a new format sharing three stories from the last week in disability news.
In Buffalo, Erie County Medical Center plans to layoff roughly 150 workers. The hospital says they need to do this in part because of cuts to Medicaid. A national expert we talked to says this is the tough reality safety-net hospitals, like ECMC who serve many people with little or no insurance, are facing. However, cutting what could include clerical staff can create other challenges for hospitals already struggling to get paid by the government through Medicaid.
From our colleagues in Albany — specialized schools for disabled students are pleading for the state to include $10 million more in funding in the final state budget. The state provides funding to about 11 non-profit, private schools across New York that serve students who are blind, Deaf, Deaf-blind or who have significant physical disabilities. These schools say the governor's budget suggests their funding stay the same, while public schools are seeing an increase.
Nationally, autistic advocates are concerned with the 21 new members appointed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, or IACC. IACC makes recommendations to the federal government on autism-related policy. An expert from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, which is run by and for autistic people, says they are concerned many of the new members promote anti-vaccine ideas, unproven and dangerous "treatments" for autism, and research into topics many autistic people do not feel are needed, such as a cure.
TRANSCRIPT:
Emyle Watkins: Hi, I'm Emyle Watkins, and this is the Disabilities Beat.
First, in the latest local news, Erie County Medical Center announced layoffs last week impacting roughly 150 workers. The hospital says it expects most of these layoffs to take place in non-clinical areas.
Beth Feldpush: Essential hospitals have always had financial challenges due to the mission that they have.
Emyle Watkins: Beth Feldpush is the Senior Vice President of Policy and Advocacy at America's Essential Hospitals, an association of safety net hospitals that includes ECMC.
Beth Feldpush: So they're serving larger numbers of patients that are uninsured or that have government-sponsored healthcare, namely Medicaid and Medicare. That has always led to slimmer financial margins because they have a smaller commercially insured patient base.
Emyle Watkins: ECMC cites "inadequate reimbursements" from both public and private payers, including those due to Medicaid cuts, as among the reasons for the staffing reductions.
Feldpush says many hospitals akin to ECMC are facing similar challenges, especially in light of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in 2025, which included cuts to Medicaid. She adds in general, having to cut staff creates further funding obstacles too.
Beth Feldpush: When hospitals do have to resort to staff layoffs, they typically try to preserve their patient care staff as long as possible. So often when a hospital does lay off workers, they tend to look at administrative staff, executives, or clerical workers first. This is a challenge in terms of getting reimbursement because these are often the same individuals that file the claims and process the payments. So you can have a situation where you get into a cycle here where you're billing more slowly, you're receiving reimbursement more slowly, and that makes your financial situation even more challenging.
Emyle Watkins: The Civil Service Employees Association, or CSEA, is one of two unions representing workers at ECMC, including the clerical workers. CSEA told BTPM NPR last week that they are actively negotiating the number of CSEA members that will be laid off and they plan to file a class action grievance in response.
Looking statewide, as we continue to follow reactions to the governor's proposed budget, 4201 schools are saying they are concerned with their proposed funding. 4201 schools are private, nonprofit schools supported by the state serving students who are blind, deaf, deaf blind, or who have significant physical disabilities. The 4201 Schools Association says its members are receiving stagnant funding in the governor's budget proposal while public schools are seeing an increase.
Antony McLetchie is the co-chairperson of the association and is president and CEO of Rochester School for the Deaf. Through an interpreter, he told the New York Public News Network that level funding would make it harder to keep up with rising costs and to retain personnel.
Antony McLetchie: We don't want to lose our teachers to the public schools because those schools are getting these incremental raises every year. That's not good for our specialized certified staff folks that are working with our children, and our students deserve them. So yes, there are big impacts that we can see happening.
Emyle Watkins: The association is seeking $10 million to help pay for higher salaries.
It's a push that has drawn support from the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian legislative caucus.
And nationally, autistic advocates are expressing concern with the recently announced 21 new members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, or IACC, through the Department of Health and Human Services.
Zoe Gross: What stood out to me about the press release is that it said that this new IACC had been appointed to help fight autism.
Emyle Watkins: Zoe Gross is the director of advocacy at the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.
Zoe Gross: And that's not how autistic people like to talk about autism. We don't think we need to be fought. We think we need to be supported and accommodated and included.
Emyle Watkins: IACC creates policy recommendations for the government on a national scale. Gross says their concern that many of the appointees have ties to the anti-vaccine movement, controversial or unsafe "treatments" for autism, or a focus on research that doesn't align with what many autistic people want or need.
Zoe Gross: So what we don't want to see and what I'm worried we will see from this new anti-vaccine IACC slate is the IACC making recommendations that the government, for example, fund more studies trying to establish a link between vaccines and autism.
Now, many credible studies done in many different countries by many different governments and universities and researchers have all shown the same thing: there's no link between vaccines and autism.
Emyle Watkins: You can listen to the Disabilities Beat segment on demand, view a transcript and plain language description for every episode on our website at btpm.org.
I'm Emyle Watkins. Thanks for listening.
