McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden on Disability
October 10, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Disability historian Paul Longmore writes about Sarah Palin as “talking about special needs children” and Obama as having substantive plans for all people with disabilities” in the October 3rd Huffington Post:
Even though 90% of the 54 million Americans with disabilities are adults, Palin, John McCain, and the news media have talked almost exclusively about children. And that talk has been mostly about “compassion” not “issues.” The McCain-Palin campaign website has a single page on “Americans with Disabilities for McCain,” but it says nothing about policy positions. Other pages mention autism and disabled veterans but no other issues.
In contrast, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have said little on the campaign trail about disability issues but their campaign website provides detailed policy proposals in a comprehensive “Plan to Empower Americans with Disabilities.”
Longmore compares McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden on healthcare, health insurance, and social services for people with disabilities. I’ve written previously about Palin on curing diseases and not on disability.
Although I’ve pretty much made my mind on who to vote for this November, I’m aware of the fact that, no matter what the candidates say, people with disabilities, regardless of age, are not on the priority list. I am not impressed by catch phrases, or ambiguous promises. I wish I was more optimistic about either candidate in that respect, but I’m not. The future worries me. Everyone talks about children with autism. Very little is said about adults with autism, and their quality of life, their particular needs. I guess this can be said about many individuals with disabilities. They seem to fall through the cracks. What is worse, aside from the organizations that care (and keep loosing grants and other means of funding), nobody seems to care.
So there needs to more talk about issues facing autistic adults and by them. I think.
Maybe it’s me, but I saw some promising platforms within the Obama-Biden statement. Implementation is always the issue, and since we are electing a President and not a King, the composition of Congress and state of the Federal and states budget will be reality checks.
At least acknowledging what needs to be done is a first step. The rest of it will always have some dependency on our attention to these matters as the electorate and concerned constituencies–to keep the issues on the front burner and give input to our representatives and other decision and policy makers.
Just the way I see it.