Harold Pollack, writing in huffingtonpost.com, says Sarah Palin’s “serious policy speech” on disabilities had some “jaw-dropping” omissions.

He searched the text posted on the campaign website, and found that Palin neglected to talk about health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, SSI and SCHIP. She didn’t consider what happens to “special needs kids” when they become adults. She didn’t even use the word “disability.”

He says the McCain-Palin plan offers “nothing” to help families with very serious needs. For example, he says, their health plan permits insurers to continue discriminating against people with chronic illnesses and disabilities — the classic people with “preexisting conditions” that insurers want to avoid. It also erodes the employer-paid health care plan that significantly protects people with costly health problems. An excerpt:

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From the Christian Science Monitor:

As Americans grapple with a troubled health care system, the presidential candidates propose plans to help families who have fallen through the gaps, including parents of children with disabilities. Costs for health care continue to rise while more than 45 million Americans have no health insurance, and another 25 million have coverage too limited to cover their medical bills.

Margaret Demko of Albany, Ohio, says her family has been without insurance since her daughter was born with Down syndrome four years ago.

She says she didn’t realize when she quit her job to care for her child that she would be unable to purchase health insurance. Insurance companies in Ohio are not required to cover children with disabilities that are defined as preexisting conditions.

The family says they earn too much to qualify for Ohio’s SCHIP plan and not enough to qualify for another state-sponsored program. Demko says she has received quotes for family health plans that start at $3,000 a month, which is almost as much as they earn.

For too long, she believes, insurance companies have been allowed to put profit before people, selling lower-priced plans to the healthy and at the same time charging exorbitant rates for people who have healthcare needs or just denying them coverage.

By Andy Miller in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Pediatricians and children’s health advocates in Georgia say that bureaucratic hurdles are preventing eligible children with disabilities and chronic illness from getting Medicaid benefits. The administrative roadblocks are causing families to feel severe financial and medical consequences, and many children end up in emergency rooms — far more expensive than a doctor visit.

“I’ve had kids with chronic medical conditions go without care,” says Dr. Michelle Zeanah, a Statesboro pediatrician. “Their parents can’t afford the $90 a month for daily medicines.”

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Ben Adler says Sarah Palin has not backed up her promises with any agenda designed to help people with disabilities. An excerpt:

There are plenty of ways, from IDEA funding to expanded health coverage to Community Choice, that Palin could promise to serve the interests of people with disabilities. But so far Palin’s pledge to lead on disability issues because of her personal connection to the community has not been developed into more than mere rhetoric. And unless she specifies what exactly she would do for disabled children as vice-president, she risks creating the impression that all she is really seeking with that rhetoric is political reward.

… Obama has substantive plans for all people with disabilities

Writing in huffingtonpost.com, Paul K. Longmore says presidential campaign coverage has included a lot of talk about “special needs” children, thanks to Sarah Palin, but little about the issues that concern the 54 million Americans with disabilities of all ages.

Longmore compares the stances of the McCain-Palin ticket and the Obama-Biden ticket on healthcare, health insurance and social services for people with disabilities. An excerpt:

Even though 90 percent 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.”

Paul K. Longmore is a professor of history and director, Institute on Disability, at San Francisco State University. His “Open letter to the disability rights constituency” appeared exclusively on this site last month.

Writing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, David M. Perry says he had hoped that Trig Palin’s presence in the limelight might  bring hope to families of children with disabilities. Instead, he says, the national conversation has focused on Sarah Palin’s decision not to have an abortion — a focus that isn’t helpful to families of kids with disabilities, nor to expectant parents who are fearful about disability.

Choosing life is not about what happens in utero, but about what follows. Choosing life is about knowledge. It’s about training doctors and nurses how to talk to expectant parents. Most of all, it’s about providing an antidote to fear by changing the perception of disability. That’s where Trig’s voice, even before he learns to talk, needs to be heard. But his voice is being drowned out by the partisan hubbub of people from both parties who are focused on the single issue of abortion. Let’s change, or at least expand, the message.

What I want is a serious national conversation about raising children with disabilities — the way that government, schools, churches, doctors, HMOs, and most of all friends and families can help us.

… Let’s talk about the federal mandates that order, but do not fund, early intervention. Let’s talk about universal health care and special education. Let’s talk about how to help our children find meaningful lives as adults. Most of all, let’s talk about ways to ensure that everyone sees people with Down syndrome as, first and foremost, just people. Then we can get to work on the syndrome.

David M. Perry is the father of a 2-year-old boy with Down syndrome and an assistant professor of history at Dominican University in River Forest, Ill.

From Healthday News/U.S. News & World Report:

A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that black, Hispanic and Native Americans with disabilities are more likely to report “fair or poor” health status than white or Asian Americans.

… With October declared National Disability Awareness Month, the CDC said, “Efforts to reduce racial/ethnic health disparities should explicitly include strategies to improve the health and well being of persons with disabilities within each racial/ethnic population.”