Not Dead Yet is among many disability organizations that work to protect and expand health care programs for all people. The disability community significantly depends on publicly funded health care. In general, the private insurance industry sees many of us as a drain on their bottom lines. It’s not complex economics, but simple revenue (premiums) minus expenses (health care provided) equals net profit. Public relations language about “consumer choice” and “access” to coverage cannot hide this simple equation.
Next Wednesday, disability advocates will have an opportunity to support federal legislators who are working to protect Medicaid by attending a press conference being led by Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. Here are the details from the Senator’s advisory:
U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) will lead the disability community in a opposing TrumpCare’s decimation of Medicaid, Wednesday, March 22nd at 11:00am. Joined by disability advocates from across the nation and members of the Senate, Casey will detail how TrumpCare ends Medicaid by turning it into a block-grant program, resulting in $880 billion in cuts over the next decade. TrumpCare’s draconian cuts to Medicaid will mean substantially less care for those with disabilities.
March 22nd Details
Event: #SaveMedicaid
Date: Wednesday, March 22nd
Time: 11:00-11:45 a.m.
Place: East side of the Capitol across from the Senate
Speakers: Senator Bob Casey and other Members
Not Dead Yet encourages disability advocates to lend their presence and voices to this and other critical efforts to save our healthcare and our lives.
After writing the above, I also saw an announcement that the National Council on Independent Living is calling for simultaneous press conferences across the U.S. You can read their Action Alert here, including a toolkit and other helpful information.
Hi, I want to make the simple suggestion for the NDY leadership to put to its constituents a proposal to vote on a name change of the organization. As it is, the name “Not Dead Yet”, while understandable why that name was chosen, is nevertheless negative, and might be inspiring the perpetrating of malevolent acts from people who are against your collective and individual causes of survival. Instead, I suggest a change to something positive, the name “We Live, We Matter” (welivewematter.org). I make this suggestion because I have friends and acquaintences who happen to be disabled in one way or another, but their disability has no bearing on their pricelessness to me; My life is unmistakably richer in its quality for knowing and interacting with them. Additionally, one never knows nor can one usually anticipate circumstances which bring about a disabling condition, let alone an opprtunity to recover from it, and we all want to be intrinsically valued regardless of any incurred or congenital disabling condition. I am an uncredentialed cultural anthropologist and I have every good reason to believe that a name change to something positive will have dramatically positive effects on public perception of people who are disabled, as well as increasing and maintaining disabled people’s own positive morale and self perception. Please do seriously consider a name change to something positive, even if it is not the one I mentioned.
We had a small, intrepid group (including myself, non-disabled[well, sciatica]) come out to Rubio’s Orlando office yesterday at not-much-notice. We emphasized special needs persons during our 30 minute press conference in front of just about all of central Florida’s media outlets. We feel we helped in a way…got pretty good “evening news coverage”