The debates going on in Congress with regard to health care reform seem almost petty to me while the big issues aren’t always in focus. A lot of the arguments revolve around economics and cost and involve ambiguous estimations. As opponents of the health care reform bills, Republicans have dropped the ball on healthy criticism.
In his Oct. 10 weekly address, President Barack Obama said by reducing Medicare waste and fraud, health care costs would lower without adding to our deficits. Sen. George LeMieux, (R-Fla.), gave a Republican Party address the same day, saying Medicare waste hasn’t been focused on enough. Both parties are using the fact of health care waste to advance their agendas.
The U.S. spent trillions of dollars on the Iraq war. If we can spend trillions on a war, we should be able to find a way to spend billions on reform. The cost issues of health care reform seem only to be something for politicians to argue about, and what they argue about sets the tone of the so-called national debate on health care. Meanwhile, there are aspects of health care reform which go unnoticed
As I mentioned in another article, one of the downfalls of the current health care reform bills in Congress is there is no clear prohibition of federally-funded abortions. This has seemed to gain little attention by Republicans, the ones who are supposed to be against abortion.
However, one potential positive aspect of reform, whatever form it takes, is it will probably benefit people with disabilities like myself. This has been on my mind a lot lately because it really hits home. And I hope debates in Congress don’t cause our senators and representatives, as well as the common folk, to forget about the disabled community whose interests are tied intimately to the idea of health care reform.
The problem with the status quo is while people with disabilities are increasingly gaining more opportunities in education, they still face many obstacles upon trying to enter the workforce. A disabled person who receives benefits like SSI and Medicaid risks losing those benefits if they begin to make a steady income and gain financial assets.
This is a problem I know all too well from some of my friends who are also disabled and are looking for work, and it is a widely known issue. Ari Ne’eman, founding president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, has written about this on The Huffington Post Web site recently.
My brother Blake, who uses a wheelchair, graduated in May with a master’s degree in business. He is ambitious about entering the workforce but is wary about losing the attendant care which makes his independence possible. Right now, he receives Medicaid insurance and funds for attendant care. Like many others, he would have to find an employer who offers group insurance and would struggle to pay whatever attendant care he could pay for out of pocket, which is not much.
And for many, attendant care is a must-have. It means independence from relying on friends and family and the potential to live on one’s own.
Candace Stephenson, a friend of mine from Ackerman and an MSU graduate, has run into the same barrier. She is now 31. She doesn’t have any incentive to get a paying job and instead does volunteer work in her community.
She said agencies like Vocational Rehabilitation can help disabled people go through college, but there are very few options after attaining an education.
“Once you graduate and get that diploma in your hand, then what do you do?” she said. “Do I keep my independence by having an attendant, or do I give up my independence to get a job . There is no way you can make enough money working a 9-to-5 job to pay an attendant.”
Not to mention, relying on family or someone you know is not always a possibility for people whose parents are senior citizens or disabled.
I hope health care reform will deal with these pressing issues. Under the proposed bills, it would almost undeniably be easier for disabled people to buy their own health insurance, but issues involving in-home attendant care (as opposed to institutional care) need to be addressed, as well as affordability and access to attendant care for the working disabled. Before his election, Obama supported the Community Choice Act, which would allow for more funds to be directed toward integrated attendant care within the community. Now, he and Congress are silent on the issue.
If health care reform doesn’t address all of these disparages, it’s not true reform.
Matt Watson is a graduate student majoring in Spanish. He can be contacted at [email protected].