Michael Bérubé at Crooked Timber has a good and fairly long post comparing the disability policies of Clinton, Obama and McCain. Kathy at The G Spot nutshells for us:
— Hillary Clinton’s disability policy? Very, very good.
— Barack Obama’s disability policy? Even better!
— John McCain’s disability policy? Complete and utter craptastic-ness.
Both Michael’s and Kathy’s posts are excellent and well worth reading in full.
I did wonder if some disability activists wouldn’t look at the candidates in terms of “right to die” laws and find McCain to be better on that issue than the two Democrats. (Although I don’t know if any of the three have specifically spoken about that issue.)
A bit from Michael’s post:
And I have to admit that I’ve been mightily vexed by […] the phenomenon of the avoidance of disability qua disability. It’s as if we Americans have been talking about disability all our lives, as Molière’s M. Jourdain has been speaking in prose, without realizing it. Remember that debate about SCHIP? You know, the one we lost on Bush’s veto? What the hell was that about? It was about disability, folks – about children suffering catastrophic illnesses and traumatic injuries for which their parents couldn’t (and their parents’ dastardly, moustache-twirling health-insurance providers wouldn’t) provide. Vets returning from Iraq with PTSD or TBI (post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury) and being warehoused and/or underserved and/or neglected by VA hospitals? Uh, well, once again, here we’re talking about disability. Why in the world do we frame these things as matters of “health” or “employment” or “veterans’ benefits,” when doing so prevents us from realizing that we’re all touching different appendages of the 8000-pound elephant in the room? The subject is disability, people. It’s about our common frailty and vulnerability. Get used to it.
I am SO GLAD someone is finally posting about this. There is a certain feminist blogger who is consistently giving crap about/to those of us who chose to vote for Obama. I finally dropped her a line and said that I’m a woman and a feminist, but since I’m disabled and Obama’s plan (for disable folks) is the fabulousness, he’s my first choice (because, really, I can’t survive without decent healthcare–it IS a matter of life and death). Immediately this woman labeled me a traitor who sides with men. Scary.
Seriously, though, I am glad that you’re bringing it up. A lot of people do blog about disability, but a lot of us are pressured from family and friends not to “complain” or worry them, so we don’t usually write about these things.
Yes, thank you for bring this up. I’ve seen some good articles in disability specific publications (i.e. New Mobility) in regards to the candidates and how they stack up on these issues, but nothing elsewhere.
Like angryyoungwoman writes above…you can be feminist or not, a person of color or not, whatever. But if you are disabled and your very life depends on health care policy in this country (as is true for all of us, the disabled just see it first hand) everything else is trumped by that one issue. With the huge influx of newly disabled Iraq vets, it is astonishing to me that this issue can possibly be ignored.
Over at the “Whatever” (scalzi.com) a few weeks ago, they were having a discussion about taxes, which quickly evolved into talking about universal health care. I am constantly amazed by the naivety of a number of able-bodied people who think there little savings accounts (and even their big, million dollar savings accounts) will be enough to get them through a catastrophic illness. This guy talked about how he made a six figure income and saved approximately 80K a year. He has health insurance, but he resents paying for everyone else’s health care as it is, he would rather pay for his own health care directly through health savings plans. Able-bodied people think they are immortal and they are talking about having a broken leg or an appendectomy and that is the extent they will ever need to pay for health care with.
Unless you are Warren Buffet rich, any catastrophic illness that leads to disability, whether it be SCI, metastasized cancer, parkinson’s, MS, whatever, will financially ruin the vast majority of Americans within less than a decade. Even those with six figure incomes. And after it financially ruins you, it will then start to ruin you physically, by slowly killing you when you can no longer be guaranteed access to quality health care. It’s the healthcare, stupid. But nobody thinks it will happen to them until it does. (And it will happen to around 80% of us in our lifetimes. Unless we die instantly in a car crash or of a heart attack, ALL of us are going to become disabled.) It is not a fringe issue, it is fundamental. Disability affects each and every one of us.