Unwise Rules That Ground the Disabled

In this country self-esteem, and where you are in your neighbors’ esteem, rests heavily on your value as a worker. A good income is considered proof of virtuous hard work. Where does this leave the large part of our population who can’t work hard because they are disabled?

The facts surrounding disability are shocking. People between the ages of 35 and 60 are four times more likely to become disabled than they are to die. Two out of three disabled women have incomes below $4,000. Nine out of 10 men leave a woman when she becomes disabled; when the tables are turned, 8 out of 10 women remain loyal to disabled men. If a disabled person does earn income--$3,000 is legally considered full employment--he or she becomes ineligible for Medicare-Medicaid insurance. Catch-22 !

The disabled person who does volunteer work, once the prestigious work of the well-to-do, finds that it is no longer valued by society. Deborah McKeithan, founder and president of Handicapped Organized Women, summarized this when she said, “Let’s face it. Self-worth depends on how much you get paid. That’s reality. I’m tired of being a volunteer.”

McKeithan, who lives in Charlotte, N.C., is a good example of a disabled person with proven skills and stamina. She suffers from MS, epilepsy, legal blindness and the effects of a stroke--but she has also been able over the last decade to work 50 to 60 hours a week inspiring other disabled persons to do volunteer work.

Six million disabled Americans want to become income-productive. But they are confronted with the impossible choice between losing the security of government medical insurance and losing their dignity by staying out of the work force to keep the insurance. What about private insurance? In most cases, to be disabled is to be uninsurable.

Loss of Medicare-Medicaid insurance means losing not only health care but also in some cases life itself.

Loss of life is the dire problem. The chronic problem is the loss of life’s quality. The disabled person--perhaps once fully active, a breadwinner and homeowner--may lose not only normal physical abilities but family, home and assets as well. Once into this cycle of poverty, there is little hope of escape.

The disabled person’s dream of employment might once have been unrealistic. But technological advances and society’s compassion have made the dream a reality. Sophisticated equipment offers renewal, independence and higher self-esteem. This reality proves disability to be dif-ability--a different set of abilities.

There are new attitudes toward the difabled. Businesses are setting up dif-abled work places within companies and homes. They have discovered that the dif-abled miss less work than the average employee. Eager for employment, the dif-abled give a bit more. It is time to exchange work disincentives for work incentives.

Rep. J. Alex McMillan (R-N.C.) and Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) have introduced a measure, based on an idea originated by McKeithan, that declares, “No American should be forced to sit at home, dependent on the federal government,” if she or he wants to work. At the core of this bill is a provision allowing the disabled American to work and buy (on a sliding scale) Medicare insurance. Its passage is the dif-abled person’s passage from dream to reality.

Failure to pass this bill would be in direct violation of the Declaration of Universal Human Rights. The delcaration reads in part, “Everyone has the right to work . . . (and) to just and favorable remuneration, ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.”

The disabled Americans’ work-incentive bill is an American human-rights issue. Because it would enable 6 million dif-abled Americans to go off the Social Security rolls, buy their own Medicare and pay taxes, it deserves the caring attention of every responsible citizen.