ADA National Network Learning Session: Achieving Equity in a Time of Scarcity: Lessons from the COVID-19 Vaccine Experience

This presentation will review the experiences of Medicaid beneficiaries and people with disabilities in California and nationally related to vaccine prioritization and deployment, and reflect on lessons for policy and practice that will support greater equity moving forward.

Learning objectives:

• Webinar participants will learn about vaccine prioritization protocols and the ways California and other states balanced their goals of speed and equity in vaccine deployment.
• Webinar participants will learn about some of the promising practices implemented by California and other states during vaccine deployment and implications of those practices for future pandemics or instances of health care rationing/shortages.

Presenters:

Andy Imparato is the executive director of Disability Rights California (DRC), a $34 million legal services organization that serves people with all types of disabilities across California. He serves on California's Community Vaccine Advisory Committee and, in February of 2021, was appointed by President Biden to serve as one of 12 public members of the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. Imparato joined DRC in February of 2020 after a high impact 26-year career in Washington DC where he was disability policy director for Chairman Tom Harkin on the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and ran the Association of University Centers on Disabilities and the American Association of People with Disabilities. His perspective is informed by his lived experience with bipolar disorder.

Priya Chidambaram is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured. In this role, she analyzes Medicaid claims, expenditures, and enrollment data. She also has expertise in other data sources, with a particular focus on long-term care data. Her research focuses on Medicaid for seniors and people with disabilities, including issues related to people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid and long-term services and supports. Prior to joining the Foundation, she worked at The Lewin Group, where she analyzed healthcare claims data. She holds a B.S. from New York University and a Master's degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.