Public Policy 101 – Live Captioning Transcript
6.10.15
>>> Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. For public policy 101
the National Disability Institute I welcome you-all and thank you all for coming on and listening
to us. I'm Katie Metz with the National Disability Institute. With that I'm going to turn it over to
my colleague Nakia Matthews to give you a few housekeeping tips. Nakia.
>> Thank you, Katie, good afternoon, everyone. The audio for today's webinar is being
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>> We will have time for questions at the end of the presentation today. Please use the Q&A
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>> If you experience any technical difficulty during the webinar use the chat box to send me a
message or e-mail me at [email protected].
>> With that I'll turn it back over to Katie.
>> Katie, are you there?
>> Yes. Thank you, Nakia. Thank you again to all of you for joining us today. So for those of
you who may not be familiar with National Disability Institute we are a national research and
development organization with the mission to promote income preservation and asset
development for persons with disabilities to that we help to build a better economic future for
Americans with disabilities in the future. We thank you for joining us to learn more about how
we can achieve that today.
>> National Disability Institute's real economic impact network is an alliance of organizations
and individuals such as yourself who are dedicated to empowering the economic development
of persons with disabilities. If you are not already part of the network we encourage you to join
the more than 4,500 members who are located throughout the United States including nonprofits, community tax coalitions, financial education initiatives, corporation, private sector
businesses, federal, state, local governments and individuals themselves or individual family
members who have disabilities. All of these partners join together to embrace, promote and
pursue access to inclusion of persons with disabilities in the economic mainstream.
>> Again, if you found us by different means and aren't part of our REI network we encourage
you to join or learn more information at realeconomicimpact.org.
>>> With that I'd like to introduce Christopher Rodriguez. He's the senior public adviser and
has extensive experience working on behalf of individuals with disabilities both on the state
and on the national levels. Prior to joining NDI he represented Michigan advocacy incorporated
as part of government tal appears. He worked for the national association of councils for
disabilities and the arch of Texas. Mr. Rodriguez also is a younger brother to a boy with
disabilities. With that I turn it over to you, Chris. Are you there? I think we're just having a
moment of difficulty. There we go. Chris, are you there?
>> This is Nakia. I'm going to run in there and try to get Chris set up. Give me one second.
>> No problem.
>> Now we can hear you, Chris.
>> We can hear you now. Great.
>> All right. I apologize about that. I think I was on mute there and didn't realize it. I certainly
appreciate the opportunity to talked to about some of the issues effecting people with
disabilities that focuses on financial stability and mobility and some of the things surrounding
employment and economic self-stuff SI. -- SECHL sufficient ly self-sue efficiency.
>> We're going to talk about federal policy and policy that are being implemented that effect
people with disabilities. Then we'll talk about the ABLE act and various financial let -legislation that's going on in state legislatures.
>> So what is public policy? Public policy are practices used by government, local, state and
federal to help direct rules, programs and laws effecting the public or segments of the public.
This can range from the local level to the state level. The state level will deal with the state
legislatures, state agencies. A lot of the important programs for people with disabilities are run
on the state level. A lot of things that provide vocational services, a lot of the different specific
special education and general education provisions are run on the state level. Then we have
public policy that's clearly made on the federal level. You're going to see a lot of the
entitlement social security type things that are specially run on the federal level and then a lot
of the over arching things between rehab and various bill, legislation that effect people with
disabilities that very established on the federal level amend implemented on the state level.
>> Moving forward. First I want to talk about the work force innovation and opportunity act.
President Obama signed the work force innovation and opportunity act or WIOA into law on
July 22nd of 2014. WIOA is designed to help youth with disabilities and people with the most
significant disabilities. Access, employment, education, training and support services to
succeed in the labor market an to match employers with the skilled workers they need to
compete. Congress passed the act by a wide bipartisan majority. It's the first legislative reform
in 15 years of the public work force system.
>> What are some of the key components special to people with disabilities. So one WIOA
increases funds for transition services for youth with disabilities. It limits the use of sub
minimum wage for youth with disabilities. It helps integrate communication between state
agencies related to education and various employment services such as vocational
rehabilitative services. It provides important vocational related definitions that have never been
included in previous laws such as what is supported employment.
>> Moving forward. So home and community based services rules. The final regulation
seventy forth new requirements for several Medicaid authorities under which states may
provide home and community-based long-term supports and services. The regulations
enhance the quality of HCBS and provide protections to people who receive services under the
Medicaid authorities. So basically individuals with disabilities take advantage of HCBS
Medicaid waivers or home and community based services waivers. Originally these were
created to help individuals with disabilities leave institutional type settings and move into the
community, which is why they got their name. In the past people struggled to figure out what
the definition of home and community based exactly is. Before it was basically anything that
was not the giant brick and more TER institutions. As time went forward we realize that had a
lot of the things that were being justified for using money that were considered home and
community-based weren't things that the disability community thought were truly in integrated
settings. Recently CMS came out with new rules and new definitions under what these home
and community-based services, Medicaid waiver dollars can be used for. Now they're giving
states a 5-year period. The key components allows states to basically submit 5-year transition
plan explaining how they will transition individuals into more community-based integrated
settings. This is going to affect individuals taking place of these waivers in residential lives and
non-residential settings. That's where this comes into play. This is going to be trying to get
individual out of segregated work environments and into employment opportunities allowing
them to start moving forward with their financial stability and mobility and allowing them to kind
of move up the economic ladder. Again, states have 5 years to figure out how to transition
those individuals to from less integrated settings to more integrated settings. They had to
submit a 5-year transition plan. Those have to be approved and monitored over the next 5
years to make sure funds are using those dollars in an appropriate manner to provide for
services in the most integrated setting for people with disabilities.
>> Moving forward. So now were moving onto initiatives that we're trying to tackle on the state
level. Recently we came across some financial literacy legislation that was filed in the state of
Florida which would create with state funds a program to enhance financial literacy for people
with developmental disabilities. This is a key component. As we look at the last two pieces of
public policy both WIOA and with the new HBS rules everything is moving in the direction of
helping people with disabilities obtain integrated competitive employment at a level they never
have before. So one of the incredibly important aspects about allowing people or giving them
to opportunity to earn money is to learn how to manage that money. That includes things such
as benefits management, how to save for the future, how to understand credit and how to
protect yourself against financial predators. So this is interesting. This is kind of what this bill
was trying to do. Unfortunately this bill ended up dying -- it was passed by the Senate but
unfortunately wasn't able to be passed on the house side prior to the session ending. It still
provides for excellent language that we're going to start -- we're going to begin using to try and
implement different similar programs across the country. We're going to do this by going to
each individual state and trying to educate their policy-makers, specifically their state
legislators on the importance of these financial literacy education specifically for people with
disabilities.
>> So moving forward. This Brings us to the achieving a better life act or ABLE act. We're
going to go over the basics on the federal level and then we're going to talk a little bit about
what's going on at the state level and hopefully what some of you can do to help influence and
help hasten the development of these vital programs for people with disabilities.
>> First off the Stephen beg, junior experiencing act. That became law December 19th of 2014.
Basically what this does is it creates a new option for some people with disabilities and their
families to save for the future while at the same time protecting their eligibility for federally
funded public benefits. So what is an ABLE account? ABLE accounts with established in a new
section 529A qualified ABLE programs. 529 accounts are qualified savings accounts that
receive preferred federal tax treatment. ABLE accounts unable eligible individuals to save for
disabled-related expenses. We will talk about that in a little bit. ABLE accounts are not yet
available and there are still some unknowns about how this program will be implemented.
Assets in and distributed for qualified disability expenses will be disregarded or given special
treatment in determining eligibility for most federal means tested been fits. Basically what this
is saying is this is going to allow people with disabilities to have a special savings account
where they can put money in and that money will not be included when determining eligibility
for means tested federally funded benefits such as social security and Medicaid. Now, there's
all kinds of stipulations that we'll go over and regulations that cover these accounts. By and
large, that's basically the purpose.
>> What are some important requirements of ABLE accounts? So each individual may have
only one ABLE account. So an individual unlike, say, a college savings plan where you can
have multiple savings accounts, this is different. A qualified individual with a disability is only
allowed to have a single ABLE account. Designated befish aird befish air are the account
owner. They are the account owner. A account must be established in the state of residence.
The total annual contributions made should not exceed the federal tax limit, which is currently
$14,000. What this means is anybody has the ability to contribute into an ABLE account but
total in any give tax year currently that amount of money contributed total cannot exceed
$140,000. 14000 -- seed $14,000 in a single year. That means if you have two contributors,
each one donating $7,000, that would cap the contributions for the year. So in total only
$14,000 can be contributed to the account total by any and all contributors. Not individually.
>> So multiple individuals may make contributions to a single ABLE account as we just
discussed and aggregate contributions may not exceed the state limits for a typical 529
savings account. So a typical 529 savings account if anybody on the webinar is not aware are
college tax deferred savings accounts. With respect to this provision when I say aggregate
contributions may not exceed the state limit, every statement has a maximum that can be put
into a account over time. It's usually $250,000 to $350,000. Once an ABLE account hits that
limit no more contributions can be made to that account period.
>> All right. Moving forward. So who is eligible to be a ABLE beneficiary? There's Number one,
there's an age requirement. So the individual must have incurred their disability prior to that
26th birthday. That does not mean who a person who let's say is 36 and has a significant
disability can't take advantage of this it just means their disability had to occur before the age
of 26. For example, a person with down syndrome, that occurred prior to the age of 236, would
be eligible under this cry -- criteria. Additionally if a person is 35 and had a car accident that
left them with a significant disability and that car accident occurred when they were 22 years
old they too would meet this particular requirement. If that same person had the car accident
after they turned 26 they would not be qualified under this particular requirement to be able to
accomplish an ABLE account. In addition to the age requirement you have to meet one of two
other requirements. So either one, this relates to the severity of the disability, you have to have
been determined to meet the disability requirements for social security disability benefits or
supplemental income. This is under the social security act. Or you have to submit what is
called a disability certification. This has to include a physician's diagnosis that the individual
meetings the criteria to be further established this regulations. It's essentially saying that you
have the same severity of disability as is established through the social security level of
disability just perhaps without SGA requirement. We can get into that more specifically later.
With regard to the disability certificate there's more details that we're hoping will come out soon.
The department of treasury has been obligated under the law to establish what are called
regulations and rules. These regulations and rules stipulate kind of the guidelines on
implementing any type of law. For this case in particular, the ABLE act, under which some of
that clarification has to do with what is a disability certification.
>> Moving forward. How do ABLE accounts assets impact eligibility for federal benefits. So
ABLE assets will be disregarded or seek favorable treatment when determining eligibility for
most federal means benefits. So there is one exception. This is for SSI. So for S SSHGSSI
only the first $100,000 in an ABLE account, only the first $100,000 assets will be disregarded.
So SSI payments will be temporarily suspended if the beneficiary's account balance exceeds
$100,000. It's important to note that it will be suspend eded and not terminated. Once the
funds dip below the $100,000 they will resume. Housing expenses will have the same
treatment as paid by outside sources. This means SSI are subject to a reduction of 1/3.
>> So it's important to know the difference between the $100,000 limit with respect to SSI
benefits and your Medicaid. So you medicate -- your Medicaid will not be touched no matter
how much money is in the ABLE account. You will not be suspended if the account exceeds
$100,000. With respect to Medicaid it's important to understand that there's a medicate pay
back provision in the law. That means any assets in the ABLE account when a person passes
away is subject to be used to reimburse the state for Medicaid payments after the creation of
the ABLE account. This means when a beneficiary passes away that has not been targeted for
a disability related expense and has been purchased by not paid the rest of the money in the
account is to be used the pay back the state for all Medicaid related expenses that the
individual incurred or took advantage of from the point in which they began the ABLE account.
So this would -- of course once the money in the account is already expired they're not going
to go after anymore money. That's an important aspect to understand of these programs.
>> Let's see. For purposes of this section the state is considered a credit to of the ABLE
account and not a beneficiary. That's significant as well. They have to lay claim to that
particular amount of money.
>> Okay. So when will ABLE accounts be able? This is a tricky question. Federal regulations
need to be written. We discussed that previously. The treasury department is required to issue
regulations or guidance within 6 months of the ABLE week. -- ABLE act. That's in the few
weeks. Hopefully it will be before the end after the summer. These will clear up a lot of the
questions with around the uncertainty with respect to the disability certification and with respect
to what they define as a ability-related expense. It's important to remember that the money
that's building in these accounts can't be used for just anything. It has to be used for what's
called a disability related expense. Hopefully we expect the treasury to give some clarification
on what those might be and what that looks like.
>> In addition, before able accounts become available a state needs to pass authorizing
legislation. What the federal law does is it allows states to establish these programs. It does
not obligate a state to establish these programs. So in order for a state to move forward on this
each individual state has to pass through their state legislature their own ABLE legislation. This
can be tedious because of the vast benefits that come along with the accounts. In the last 5
months we have seen over half of the states adopt ABLE-related education to start
implementing their program. We hope to see the first ABLE accounts being opened in certain
states sometime early 2016. In addition each state must decide how and whether to offer
qualified ABLE program to its residents. Like I said previously, many states are considering
legislation now. Many states like I said have already passed legislation. There is also the
opportunity in the law if the state doesn't feel they have the resources or is uncomfortable with
developing their own program, they do have the ability to contract with the state who is
developing their program so that their residents can take advantage of the benefits of having
an able account even though their state may not be implementing the ABLE program
themselves.
>> All this adds up to the fact that the timing of ABLE programs to be available will vary from
state to state.
>> So state legislation. Like I said, some states are moving quickly to pass authorizing
legislation, some are being more timid, some are waiting for the rules and regs to come out
that hopefully will happen soon. There are some minimum state requirements that we're
recommending that exist in all state proposed pieces of legislation. One, each state legislation
needs to authorize a 529 ABLE program. This means that they need to basically mimic a lot of
the language in the federal law that allows the program to exist. It needs to make sure that all
the language is consistent with the federal laws and all the requirements are consistent with
the federal law, that they don't have any conflicts that would render the state policies illegal. It
also needs to designate a state agency to over see the program. A lot of states will find that
the state agency will be the state's treasury department because that's already overseeing the
savings accounts related to college tuition. In addition the state legislation needs to exempt the
funds in the ABLE account from the state. On the federal level the funds are exempt from
federally funded programs but the federal government does not have the authority to exempt
them from state-funded programs that might support people with disabilities. We're finding a lot
of states are doing that.
>> We're recommending there should be exemption from state taxes. That means if the state
has state income tax that the contributions made to an ABLE account could have some kind of
tax advantage as being allowed to be tax deductible. That will encourage people to contribute
to the account.
>> Also the authority to contract with another state. That gives a state who decided to move
forward the ability to offer that program to a state who is interested but like I said before is not
moving forward on developing their own program. Another requirement that we've started to
recommend to states but it's not included on this list is to include a financial literacy component
within the state legislation. This pairs into what I mentioned previously with the Florida
legislation. It would be great to see in addition to these requirements states building financial
literacy program geared towards people with disabilities so when they're beginning to save
substantial amounts of money in these accounts they understand what that means, what they
can be used for, how to set goals for savings and how to spend responsibly.
>> Okay. So as a call to action I would be very much interested -- I'm not completely aware of
the kind of demographic or geographic locations of people on the webinar. I'm sure some of
your states have either passed ABLE legislation or filed ABLE legislation. I certainly ask that
the folks on the call figure out what's going on in your state with respect to ABLE, what steps
are they on in the process to developing these programs. I also encourage everybody to figure
out ways on how you can assist the development of a program and who can help you
accomplish these goals. So looking at these questions some of the things I recommended to
people from various states wanted to be more involved in this is see what's going on with you
state disability act organizations. There's certain organizations that's help folks with disabilities
that will exist in every state by law. The disable councils are going to exist, the protection and
advocacy system will exist in every state, your university centers on disability are going to exist
in every state. I think every state has a state arch chapter that exists. UCP has a significant
presence in the states. On the federal level some of the groups that we've been working very
closely with that I know have a significant reach in their communities are on the state and local
level are autism speaks and the national down syndrome society. Both of them have significant
affiliates on the ground that I encourage people to reach out to and get more information on
what's going on with you state specific to the able act. You're going -- ABLE act. You're going
to find in some states that legislation has not been filed. That's a limited amount of states. I
would encourage you to start contacting your state legislatures and informing them about the
importance of having an ABLE act and the importance for helping people with disabilities save
for the future. In states that have filed legislation I encourage you to figure out where that is. It's
going to be on the House side or Senate side and exist in a particular committee when it's
sitting there, if it's having trouble. I would encourage you to contact the chairman of that
committee to educate them on the importance of passing ABLE legislation. For the state that -states that have already passed ABLE legislation I know that the entities responsible for
developing the program are very interested in getting stakeholder input as they move forward
on this. That certainly includes -- it should include the disabilities community because it's
effecting people with disabilities. There's plenty of room to be involved in all aspects regardless
of where you state stands in their development of these programs.
>> So we've gone over a few of the public policy initiatives and things going on both on the
federal and on the state level. I want to encourage everybody to sign up for our Washington
insider. This is a monthly public policy newsletter that NDI puts out. It's September sent out to
the members of the REI network and others. The link is here. I encourage you to sign up. It's
going to get give you readily ability information on the federal level effecting people with
disabilities and policies that are in the realm of increasing financial stability and economic selfsufficiency. I encourage you-all to sign up for that.
>> Of course I'm available to answer any questions related to public policy. Here's my contact
information there on the scene. I'd be -- on the screen. I'd be more than happy to discuss. We
when over a lot here. The WIOA is a 300-page bill with about 2,000 pages of regulations,
proposed regulations. There's a lot in there. I didn't have time to go through everything. Same
with the ABLE act. It was just a very quick fast explanation. There's certainly a lot more to
know. I'd certainly be able to go into more detail at a future time if we don't get to everybody's
questions. I'm always happy to do that. There's going to be more information to come on all
these programs. If you happen to give in -- to live in a state where you think your contacts or
state legislators might be specifically interested in looking into programs for financial literacy
for people with disabilities please contact me so that welcome get in contact with those folks
and get the ball rolling.
>> So I think right now we're going to move onto questions.
>> Great. Thank you so much Chris. That's a lot of wonderful information. I want -- I think on
the heels of that we have several questions here. We'll get started.
>> One individual wants to know, how can we determine the level of progress a state has
made? I think that's probably a question for many individuals. This individual specifically lives
in Georgia.
>> I think that's a great question. So there's several different avenues that you can take to
figure out where your state is. Certainly I would encourage you to contact your state disability
advocacy organization to be more involved. I know people may not necessarily have that kind
of time. We include monthly updates specific to ABLE in our Washington insider. We're also
building what is going to be called the national -- I'm sorry, ABLE national resource center
website that will have up to date information both on what's going on in the federal level and
what's going on on each individual state. We're hoping to get that launched sometime this
summer. In addition to that right now if you go www.ndss.org that stands for -- I'm sorry.
National down syndrome society. They have an update to date list of all the states and what's
going on with their pieces of ABLE-related legislation. So I can certainly get that out to
everybody as well.
>> Thank you, Chris.
>> So having said that about the website one individual's question is so this policy allowing the
IDD to treat a protective savings account that doesn't effect their public benefits but the
guidelines for how to set up the actual accounts have not been set up? Able maybe clarify if
this is just for developmental disability members.
>> Right. So it's not just for individuals with developmental disabilities. However, the age
requirement has been set up, which we hope to go back in the future and change, if you did a
survey over 50% of the individuals with IDD. As in my example earlier, let's say you are 23
years ago old do not have disability but had a car accident that left you paralyzed you do not
have a developmental disability but you would be qualified for an ABLE account or for an
ABLE program. It is not exclusively for the people with developmental disabilities. It's just that
your Disability had to occur before the age of 26.
>> Great. Thanks, Chris.
>> One other question, can the ABLE account be preferred to another family member with a
disability if someone is deceased and by passed the Medicaid pay back law?
>> Right. So we're looking for clarification on that. Let's say that I have -- let's say that you
have two children, they both meet the criteria for having an able account, one passes away,
you would be able to roll over that account to the other sibling as long as they are a qualified
disability beneficiary, yes.
>> Great. Going back to the HCBS, how does this or does it effect group homes or clustered
neighborhood housing that may be currently in effect for persons with disabilities?
>> That's a great question. So basically what the HCBS rules did was instead of getting a
clean definition of home and community based they kind of set up a list of character istics that
would describe what an integrated setting would look like. They tried to compare it to the every
day life of everybody else, a typical residential setting. This includes things like if I'm in some
kind of group home do I have the ability to eat when I want to or am I being told that lunch is
served from 12:00 to 1:00 and dinner is from 7:00 to 8:00 and if that's not there at that time I'm
not going to eat. That's not going to be considered a home and community-based environment.
It includes making sure that individuals have a strong capacity to over see their finances.
These things need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Some of this things that people
are talking about, do I have the ability to lock me room DOSHGS I -- room, do I have the ability
to invite friends over when I want to invite friends over. Do I have access to the community the
way anybody else would have AEK -- access to the community or can I only go out in a group
setting. That won't cut it. Those individuals will not be able to use home and community based
dollars to live in places like that. It's not only applicable to resignation dent settings but to nonresidential settings such as they have programs and sheltered workshops. That's a very
complicated transition which is why CMS is giving states 5 years to do it in addition they have
to submit like I said a 5- year plan in which that plan is supposed to include where each state is
in respect to individuals being integrated. The larger disability organizations and community
add -- advocacy and farms would not meet the new criteria of the latest rules.
>> So we have another question that kind of can segway in. It's back to the ABLE act. If the
person with a disability is not able to make prudent financial diseases -- decisions how that
request be the owner of the account if they are unable to do so?
>> That's a great question. So it has been -- that was a big, big question over the last few
months. The IRS actually put out a notice reaffirming that the beneficiary is the account owner.
What we're encouraging the treasury also is to assume there's a presumption of competency.
Most state legislation is allowing there to be a signatory for individuals who have guardianship
or for individuals who have other people taking responsibility over their fiduciary decisions. So
while the individual would still be the account owner there could be other people that have the
authority to control the account basically. This brings back to why it's so important to couple
these befinish ASHs -- Benbeneficiaries to financial cupable.
>> What is the difference between the ABLE act and the TANIF account?
>> That's a good question. I'm 23409 SFLAR with -- I'm not very familiar with the TANIF
account. It's probably the caps and the funds in the ABLE accounts can only be used for disability related expenses. I'm not sure what the money in the TANIF accounts can be used for
and what they're tax advantages are.
>> That's okay. That kind of gives us another question that came up which we know that the
legislation doesn't specifically address what disability-related expenses will be. Is there any -has there been any talk of what they may consider a disability related lated expense that might
be allowable under the ABLE account.
>> Right. So we're arguing for the most liberal and wide definition of a qualified disability
expenses. Currently there's a list within the statute that talks about the categories. Distributions
from a ABLE account can be used for qualified expenses related to the individuals disability.
They can include expenses related to education, house, transportation, employment training
and support,health prevention and wellness, financial management and administrative services,
legal fees, expenses for oversight and monitoring, funeral and burial expenses. Then in
addition to all those buckets they can also be used for expenses approved by the secretary of
treasury under regulations. So we're hoping that in addition to those, which is actually a fairly
broad group of categories that they can spend the funds on we're hoping to expand that even
further with the secretary of the treasury regulations.
>> Great.
>> So now that we kind of have an idea of what the expenses might be there's a question as to
how will individuals access the funds if their account, will there be a limit on when the money
has to be drawn down from the ABLE account or will all of that be set by each state?
>> I think to a certain expent tent that's going to be set a little bit by the regulations but
predominantly by the states depending on the program. What encouraged the states and
treasury to support is that the individual should have unlimited access to disbursements. There
shouldn't be something that says you can only pull money from the account for disability
related expenses twice a month. We think that would be prohibitive. We don't want there to be
any minimum contributions to start an account. We want it to be as easy as possible to get the
money from the account to the provider of the disability disability expense as possible.
>> Great. This individual lives in Mississippi. What are ways they can help MS, Mississippi,
begin a literacy program. I think that's good.
>> Right. I think that's a great question. I would begin with contacting your state legislation.
You're going to have a state representative and state Senator or maybe in Mississippi it's
called assembly members and Senators. Just start the conversation of how it's literacy is for
people with disabilities. I think it's important to site a lot of the trends going on currently that's
moving towards helping people with disabilities establish employment which ultimately is going
to help them save money. Ass people start to save money I think it's important they understand
how to manage that money. That would certainly be my first move. Like I said previously,
always be free to contact me. I would be happy the assist in the meetings with state legislators.
I'll offer insight for financial literacy on the state level. SDMRSZ ->> We have time for just a couple more questions. Given that individuals have other types of if
assistance what type efforts have have been done for awards?
>> I think that's a good question. An ABLE account is another avenue to put your money. Of
course they're going to be -- I don't think they should be in direct conflict with each other but I
think they're part of the cool hit to help find those types of moneys. In addition to an ABLE
account there's always special needs trusts and pool trusts or you can put the money to make
sure that it isn't interfering for your eligibility means test for federal benefits. I've never heard of
insurance policies, at least the pay outs of insurance policies, being disregarded because it is
just cash basically. That's something to think ability.
>> Probably our last two before we wrap up that kind of go together.
>> First, how do I find the him for 529 savings account in my state? If my state doesn't pass
legislation for the ABLE act what are my options for advocating to do so?
>> Right. So typically you can Google 529 in your state and you'll get the state cap. Like I said,
it's going to be somewhere between $250,000 and probably $350,000 I think the is other max.
As far as if your state has not filed education I would start connecting with your state
regulations, your arches, UCPs, protection and advocacy. These are all people that have
officer offices in Washington. They're encouraging them to create strategies for state
legislation. I would pair with them. Hopefully they have all the information that I have and that
other organizations have that you can start to conditions and then start to disburse and
educate your state representatives and Senators. If you're living in a state where the
government is less inclined to development programs I I would encourage you to connect with
them. There's states that are being to administer other states programs.
>> Always free free to contact me and I can put you in touch with some state level folks so that
I can kind of get the ball rolling.
>> One quick follow up to that that might be helpful as well, Chris, can you share or provide
any links to the comments that the NDI submitted about the ABLE act?
>> I can certainly do that. I can get that out to the REI network very soon.
>> Awesome. Thank you so much, Chris. You had such great information. As you mentioned, I
know that you'll continue to update us all to both the REI network and of course the
Washington insider. I encourage all of you that may have found us through other means in
you're not already part of the real economic impact network please sign up. It's very simple to
do. Go to the link that we have on the powerful, NDI sign Mohamed Emwazi up -- sign me up
and we will make sure that you are added to the network to receive notices on add KOE -advocacy issues, and our staff to work with your for Americans with disabilities. We will have
another webinar next month, Wednesday, July 8th at 3:00 p.m. eastern standard time. For
more information about that webinar it will be sent out through REI and our on website,
realeconomicimpact.org. You can check out today's webinar, PowerPoint on our website
realeconomicimpact.org. We encourage you to reach out to him or staff if you have additional
questions or have more questions on how you can advocate for the ABLE act in your own
state. Thank you, Chris, for joining us on your policy individuals.
>> With that I wish you-all a good afternoon and contact us with any additional questions.
Thank you so much.
>> [Event concluded]