Kids with disabilities and their families are already feeling the effects of the worsening recession. NPR has the story of a young mother who is reluctantly reenlisting in the army to ensure that her son–a child with multiple disabilities–receives the treatment he needs. The family’s home state of Nevada has slashed reimbursement rates for therapists who treat kids on Medicaid and there is a long waiting list for early intervention services.
Here in Minnesota, kids are being spared the worst of proposed health care cuts. The governor is proposing the elimination of services like physical and speech therapy, but only for adults on Medicaid. But this family’s story underscores the heartbreaking, absurd choices our broken health care system forces upon people already overwhelmed by life’s capricious turns.
Any civilised, developed society should be based on the principle that everybody ought to pay his share in the well-being of others. Solidarity is all about giving a little bit of what you have, every month, to “the unknown others”, …until the day comes you yourself might be in need of help, because of “life capricious turns” ,as you call our unforeseeable human fate.