From a press release from the National Council on Disability:

People with disabilities face significant barriers to health care and are in need of immediate health care reform, according to a federal report released yesterday.

The report by the National Council on Disability found that people with disabilities frequently lack health insurance or coverage for necessary services, are disproportionately in poor health because their health conditions are not well managed, and are less likely to use preventive health care measures.

Among barriers faced by people with disabilities, the report found, are stereotypes about disability; medical personnel who haven’t been trained in meeting their needs; a lack of accessible medical facilities, equipment, and sign language interpreters; and a health care system that is more concerned with preventing disability than with improving the quality of life of people who have disabilities.

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A small group of parents protested this week that the Obama health care legislation would lead to the rationing of services for their children with disabilities, a charge that was refuted by some disability advocacy organizations.

Politico’s Ben Smith writes that such accusations are “simply not true,” and said the Obama proposal will actually benefit people with disabilities. Smith said the proposal will improve health care accessibility, prohibit insurance companies from setting limits on coverage, and prohibit the denial of coverage based on preexisting conditions. An excerpt:

The hard truth is, rationing exists right now in our health care system. Under the status quo, health insurance companies decide what care you can and can’t have, based not on which treatments you need, but what type of insurance you have.

But the health insurance reform that the President has proposed will mean the opposite — expanded coverage and lower costs. It will offer more choices for care for those with disabilities, not fewer. It will bring more stability and security to families of those with disabilities who currently have insurance, and it will expand coverage for those who don’t.

‘Disabled just won’t make it to birth’

Meghan Clyne writes in the New York Post that ObamaCare would be more likely to prevent babies with disabilities from being born rather than deny end-of-life treatments using “death panels,” as suggested by Sarah Palin.

With finite resources, government has every incentive to keep heavy consumers of health care off the public insurance rolls. And it isn’t hard to see where an unborn baby with a disability will land on the government’s priority list.

So when Obama’s bureaucrats set health-care policies with cost-cutting in mind, don’t be surprised if they “recommend” that OB-GYNs receiving federal funds (which will be all of them) screen for genetic defects as part of routine prenatal care, and “advise” expectant mothers of the “burdens” of raising children with disabling conditions.

… The social stigma will rise, too. When everyone is on the hook for everyone else’s health-care costs, the result is nannying so hard-core it would make Mary Poppins blush — just look at the scorn already heaped on smokers and the obese. Why should we pay just because some silly woman wouldn’t abort her defective embryo?

From the Associated Press:

Of the first 36 U.S. children to die of the swine flu since it was identified in April, almost two-thirds had epilepsy, cerebral palsy or other neurodevelopmental conditions, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a previous flu season, only a third of the children who died of the flu had comparable underlying conditions.

See also:

Ed. Dept. Gives Guidance on Providing Special Education During a Swine Flu Outbreak – Education Week blog

From the Los Angeles Times:

The decision was an apparent acknowledgement by Democrats that the proposal had become a lightning rod for critics of the proposed overhaul of the health care system.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had charged that the President wanted to set up “death panels” that would deny health care services to people like her parents and her son with Down syndrome.

Supporters of the plan said the provision was intended to pay doctors who counsel patients about end-of-life care.

The Palin claim about “death panels” was so widely discredited that the White House has begun openly quoting it in an effort to show that opponents of the healthcare overhaul are misinformed.

Palin has defended her claim with a new posting.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Lennard Davis says Republican concerns about “death panels” amount to “misinformation and downright lies” that use people with disabilities as “poster children” in an attempt to sink the administration’s health care proposal. An excerpt:

This rhetorical concern for the disabled is fascinating coming from the right, which has routinely worked against extending accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying that it would cost businesses too much to retrofit their environments.

… It is important that people with disabilities speak out against being used as the negative poster children of the Republican’s smear campaign. The reforms advocated in the health care bill would specifically benefit people with disabilities by stopping the current practice in which insurance companies can terminate people for their health status.

Davis is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Laura Hershey, writing in U.S. News & World Report, says the current debate over “end-of-life care” neglects to acknowledge the rich, vibrant lives lived by people with disabilities. She worries that health care rationing plans rely on discriminatory and erroneous views that ignore the experiences and value of people with disabilities.

An excerpt:

Tactless acquaintances have told me they would kill themselves if they became as disabled as me. More chillingly, the last time I was hospitalized for pneumonia, I had two different nurses ask if I had a DNR-a “do not resuscitate” order. I replied that I had come to the hospital to get better, not to die.

Unfortunately, that expectation of medical treatment can run up against physicians’ opposing views and hospitals’ rules.

… In this economic and social climate, we fear that medical practitioners will stop short of saving our lives. More and more, despite rhetoric about “patient autonomy,” the decision to withhold treatment is imposed upon patients. Especially vulnerable are those unable to communicate their wishes.