The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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August 26, 2011

Price to write book chapter on rehabilitation issues

By Phyllis Zorn, Staff Writer CNHI

ENID — Jason Price has seen the vocational rehabilitation program from both sides, and now his expertise has been called upon to help write a book on best practices for the program.

Originally from Dover, Price now is an Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services programs manager in Oklahoma City.

He was tapped to write a chapter of an upcoming Institute on Rehabilitation Issues book about how the Affordable Health Care Act can be used to get more people off the rolls of the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Income programs and transition them to work — or back to work as the case may be.

“I’m an example of that,” Price said. “I have cerebral palsy and I’m in a wheelchair — have been my whole life. And I used to collect SSI.”

Price’s chapter will focus on benefits planning and work incentives.

Price said he signed up for the Vocational Rehabilitation program after high school. The program got him a better wheelchair and allowed him to go to college. He got his bachelor’s degree in mass communications and journalism from Northeastern State at Tahlequah in 1997.

Next he spent about four years as a sports and features writer for the Kingfisher Times and Free Press and the El Reno Tribune.

In 1999 he went to work for the Vocational Rehabilitation program as a media relations director. After changing his employment, he went to work on his master’s degree.

He earned his master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation in 2008 from the University of North Texas in Denton.

“It’s the practice of helping disabled people regain or retain employment,” Price said. “The cool thing about what we’re trying to do — the very premise of disability is that they cannot do any work. We’re trying to ease the burden on Social Security. We’re trying to get as many people off as we can.”

One of the useful provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act is that in 2014, people with disabilities can no longer be exempted from insurance on grounds of pre-existing conditions.

“Also it gives disabled people a chance,” Price said. “It broadens the scope of Medicaid.”

As of now the upper income limit for Medicaid is 150 percent of poverty. The act will change that to 300 percent of poverty, Price said.

“It’s going to change the destiny of people who are disabled and don’t have insurance,” Price said.

The upcoming book will be edited and co-chaired by Michael O’Brien, director of DRS. O’Brien is a certified rehabilitation counselor and vocational evaluation specialist. He is active at the national level in several professional organizations, including the Commission for Certified Rehabilitation Counselors, the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Vocational Evaluation and Career Assessment Professionals.

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