Like angryyoungwoman writes above…you can be feminist or not, a person of color or not, whatever. But if you are disabled and your very life depends on health care policy in this country (as is true for all of us, the disabled just see it first hand) everything else is trumped by that one issue. With the huge influx of newly disabled Iraq vets, it is astonishing to me that this issue can possibly be ignored.

Over at the “Whatever” (scalzi.com) a few weeks ago, they were having a discussion about taxes, which quickly evolved into talking about universal health care. I am constantly amazed by the naivety of a number of able-bodied people who think there little savings accounts (and even their big, million dollar savings accounts) will be enough to get them through a catastrophic illness. This guy talked about how he made a six figure income and saved approximately 80K a year. He has health insurance, but he resents paying for everyone else’s health care as it is, he would rather pay for his own health care directly through health savings plans. Able-bodied people think they are immortal and they are talking about having a broken leg or an appendectomy and that is the extent they will ever need to pay for health care with.

Unless you are Warren Buffet rich, any catastrophic illness that leads to disability, whether it be SCI, metastasized cancer, parkinson’s, MS, whatever, will financially ruin the vast majority of Americans within less than a decade. Even those with six figure incomes. And after it financially ruins you, it will then start to ruin you physically, by slowly killing you when you can no longer be guaranteed access to quality health care. It’s the healthcare, stupid. But nobody thinks it will happen to them until it does. (And it will happen to around 80% of us in our lifetimes. Unless we die instantly in a car crash or of a heart attack, ALL of us are going to become disabled.) It is not a fringe issue, it is fundamental. Disability affects each and every one of us.

Seriously, though, I am glad that you’re bringing it up. A lot of people do blog about disability, but a lot of us are pressured from family and friends not to “complain” or worry them, so we don’t usually write about these things.