disABILITY and Health Care Reform

So clearly the health care reform has been a hot topic in the past week because the new bill-The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 and he signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act on March 25, 2010. These are events that will go down in history and change the scope of health care in America forever.

According to the white house website, this is what health care reform means in simple terms:

Health reform will make health care more affordable, make health insurers more accountable, expand health coverage to all Americans, and make the health system sustainable, stabilizing family budgets, the Federal budget, and the economy:

* It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today. This helps 32 million Americans afford health care who do not get it today – and makes coverage more affordable for many more. Under the plan, 95% of Americans will be insured.
* It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving millions of Americans the same choices of insurance that members of Congress will have.
* It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care.
* It will end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions.
* It puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next ten years – and more than $1 trillion over the second decade – by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.

So you're probably wondering why I am posting this in my disABILITY blog. What does health care reform have to do with disABILITY rights? Well, it actually has a whole lot to do with it. I've talked before about how the idea of disability does not just extend to what society perceives to be a mental, emotional, or physical disability. I think the U.S. government was previously "disabling others" when those 32 million Americans could not afford health insurance and quality health care.

I also think another very important piece of the health care reform bill is that it will end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions. There are countless instances of Americans being denied coverage because of a "pre-existing condition" and because of this they could not obtain the proper care they needed, and this resulted in outcomes as serious as death. Here is a story that happened just this past week about a newborn dying because his application for health care was denied, since the new health care reform bill does not actually go in effect until September. If denying someone care because of a pre-existing condition is not considered to be an act of disabling others, then I don't know what is. This new bill will stop discrimination against people with various disabilities.

Personally I think health care reform is a great thing and an awesome move in the right direction for the disability community, but obviously I am just writing this as a personal opinion and this is not necessarily the opinions of everyone in the disability community or even the disABILITY Enlightenment Project. Feel free to comment with your own opinions!

Language and disABILITY

So, I have been loosely following the olympics, as I am sure many of you also have been, and I was watching as Alexandre Bilodeau won the ski moguls to become the first Canadian to win a medal inside the country's borders. The reporters kept saying how exciting this was for Canada and how close Bilodeau was to his little brother with cerebral palsy. The reporters continued focusing on Frederic Bilodeau, but what caught my attention is how they kept saying he was "suffering with cerebral palsy" and how he was "confined to a wheelchair."

Suffering? Confined? Are these really words we should be associating with disability? I've heard other phrases such as "wheelchair bound" and "that person is stricken with..." or "a victim of..." Some people even continue to use terms such as dumb, slow, gimp, midget, mentally retarded, cripple, and so on.

By using these terms we are disabling others. If someone is disabled, who has the right to say they are "suffering"? Or if someone is a wheelchair user, he or she is certainly not "bound" to it.

I think sometimes we don't realize how powerful the words we use actually are and the impact they have on people. By using terms with negative connotations we are oppressing others and I think we need to learn how to speak in such a way that is positive and respectful.

Language and disABILITY is something I am very interested in, so if anybody has any information on where I can learn more, I would definitely appreciate it!

Don't forget about the meeting tonight in Duffy 219 @ 8:30!

Anybody See The Summit Article?

So, in the November 19th issue of The Summit (which seems like ages ago) Jeff Compagna wrote an article on the disABILITY Enlightenment Project. For those of you who don't know, The Summit is Stonehill's student run newspaper which usually comes out biweekly.

Anyway, I knew that there was going to be some sort of article, because Compagna had interviewed me via E-mail, but I had NO IDEA that it was going to be on the front page! This is great publicity for us and I am so excited that the editors decided that we were important enough for the front page!!

For those of you who haven't read the article, it basically talked about what we are all about and how we hope to gain awareness about the subject of disABILITY. It mentioned the motives behind creating the club and not only what students were involved, but the faculty and staff that helped make it happen- like Martha Ucci (the director of the Office of Academic Achievement), Richard Grant (head of the Disability Committee and Dean of Academic Services), and Jim Hermelbracht (director of Student Activities). It also went into things I thought that could be fixed on campus, as well as programming the club plans to achieve.

The article also voiced the opinion of junior Tom McKinnon- a political science major on campus with cerebral palsy and it was said that "He believes that the club will be beneficial in educating people on the subject, but hopes that education will lead to disabilities becoming a transient issue." I definitely understand where he is coming from- that he believes disAbility should become a transient issue, but in order for people to be able to see disAbility in a different light there needs to be a movement. On campus there are groups that promote cultural awareness- like Diversity on Campus and Asian-American Society. I think we need groups like this in order to promote differences and work towards understanding them.

McKinnon also said "The issue [disAbility] and the club should be taken with a grain of salt. I hope that disabilities will become a non-issue." Once again, I understand where he is coming from, but I do not really understand why the issue and the disABILITY Enlightenment Project needs to be taken with a grain of salt. He explains that "the club's main focus should be to work towards total equality and not alienation." I feel like the disABILITY Enlightenment Project is not alienating people with disAbilities at all, just like the Diversity on Campus Club, the Asian-American Society, and other clubs of that nature do not alienate people of different racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds. Those groups are not "taken with a grain of salt," so why should the disABILITY Enlightenment Project be?

I want people to realize that what we are trying to do is not to set aside people with disAbilities, but rather educate people about them and embrace them. We want to promote equality, and I want people to feel comfortable discussing the subject of disAbility since it can sometimes be such a taboo issue.

I see absolutely nothing people need to be wary about in regards to the disABILITY Enlightenment Project. I think we are doing a great thing, but if McKinnon and others do have qualms with the club, I do want them to come forward and voice their opinion, because like I just mentioned I want to promote discussion about disAbility on campus.

Anyway, to wrap this up I am glad that we got so much publicity and I hope that more members of the Stonehill College Community will become involved.

Feel free to join this blog and make a post of your own!

Ally

disABILITY Enlightenment Project

The disABILITY Enlightenment Project at Stonehill College agreed that it would be a great idea to start a blog. This will hopefully be used as a forum to discuss disABILITY and act as another tool to educate the community! Hopefully we can get the kinks figured out quickly so we can dive into deeper issues.

Happy Blogging Everybody!