Ben Mattlin is a disability activist and writer (he also gets paid for writing outside of the disability arena). I’ve had the privilege of knowing him for over a decade.
He’s authored an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune that reflects the current realities many of us who have disabilities face in the health care system right now. He also shares how so much of the debate around “reform” isn’t convincing to many of us – no matter which side of the political aisle is speaking.
Here’s the intro to “People like me – Is there room in health care for the disabled?“:
Last year, I was rushed to the hospital after a severe gastrointestinal infection became septicemia. I was unconscious, inches away from death, but before the doctors would perform their magic they asked my wife, “Are you sure you want us to do this?”
Actually, they said, “Is he full code?” but it meant the same thing.
It’s hard not to take that personally, and to be more than a little fearful for your life when similar stories get shared around the disability community.
Like me, he’s not real impressed with either end of the political spectrum in the current debate over “reform,” which seldom touches on the realities many of us deal with right here and now:
Every day, lawsuit-wary doctors, many with misguided notions about the quality of life for people with disabilities, and the penny-pinching insurance companies who pay them render judgments about who does and does not receive certain kinds of care. So when the right wing warns about medical rationing as a bleak future possibility, I don’t listen. I and countless others on the margins already feel the squeeze. Could the feds really do a worse job?
On the other hand, when the left wing talks about health care reform as a kind of panacea, I raise a skeptical eyebrow too. There’s more wrong with our current system than Washington can fix. I don’t like the outrageously expensive premiums I pay as a “high risk” customer, but the most galling obstacles I face can’t be easily legislated away.
In the end, like many of the people I know in the disability community, Mattlin figures the reform that might happen is better than nothing – there are some small ways it might help him and others similarly situated and it probably won’t make things worse.
But don’t take my word for that – go read it yourself. –Stephen Drake
In fact, there is plenty of room for concern. That 2,000+-page monstrosity of a bill which not one Senator has even READ completely is already known to contain meaures which would ration care to both the disabled and the elderly, even limiting our access to needed assists such as wheelchairs and life-saving surgeries. We don’t want our system to get like that of Canada, where Fluffy and Fido receive more timely care than do the human citizens, which is why so many of them have for decades been coming here for adequate and good quality care. Tell your Senators to vote NO on this bill and to KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF OF OUR MEDICARE! If they take 400 billion out of Medicare to start the new program as suggested, our Medicare will fail and we will lose our good health care coverage, which only needs some adjustments to continue being one of the best health care systems on earth.
Dear Anonymous,
I would be very surprised if the number of Canadians coming to the US for treatment exceeded the number of US citizens who go to Canada to get more affordable prescriptions – especially when combined with the US citizens who go to other countries for medical procedures to have them performed at a fraction of the rate here in the US. I know quite a few Canadians – not one that I know has ever come to the US for medical treatment and in fact get nervous about what could happen to them here in the US if they needed medical treatment while visiting.
There are already hurdles and limits on equipment for PWDs – in those rare private insurance companies that cover us as part of a group – and in medicaid and medicare.
It would be interesting to do a comparison of wait times for various surgeries. More and more, I am hearing of people having to wait weeks and months here in the US to be scheduled for an operation.