2007-09-06 - 9:48 p.m.
I got a letter last week from the Illinois Department of Human Services. In order to continue getting our awesome homecare worker, I had to apply for state-administered Medicaid. This involved jumping through all sorts of hoops. I had to give a complete account of my finances and present bank statements. I had to declare I owned no burial plots, motor vehicles, life insurance policies, etc. Most annoying, I had to fax it all in � the high technology of 1982 (fortunately, while I don�t own a fax machine myself, there�s one in our building�s management office).
The letter was a response to my application. Part of it read �YOUR APPLICATION FOR MEDICAL HAS BEEN DENIED. REASON: YOU DO NOT MEET DEPARTMENT DEFINITION OF PERMANENT AND TOTAL DISABILITY.� My first reaction was: what?!? Then who the hell does? I wanted to go down to my case worker�s office and confront him directly in my wheelchair. If you can look me straight in the eye and deny me, well that�s cold, but you�re a bigger man than I. Instead I called him.
He explained that, even though I�d been turned down for Medicaid, my homecare worker wouldn�t be cut off. Okay, that�s a relief. But why don�t I meet the definition of permanent disability? Did he have a secret cure for MS that he was going to give me, so that my disability wouldn�t actually be permanent? He pointed out that definitions of �disability� vary widely between organizations. For the state DHS, the fact that I drew a (minimal) salary (from No Pity Mobility Corp.) and have private health insurance (also through my company) means to them I�m not totally disabled.
We�ve been talking a lot in grad school about �models� of disability, ways of conceptualizing it. For much of recent history, the dominant model has been the �medical model�. This sees disability as rooted in an individual�s ailment or injury. (By contrast, the �social model� sees disability as a function of the fact that society created an environment with, for example, a lot of stairs that some members can�t climb. I like this idea a lot � hey wait, it�s not me, it�s you! But I�ll save talking about that for another time.)
Most significantly for the matter at hand, the medical model views people with disabilities as �abnormal�, perhaps deserving of pity, but unable to help themselves. This is exactly what DHS was saying. To qualify as an official crip, you have to be entirely unable to work. At least to qualify for Medicaid. Again, I�m glad our country has a safety net to catch those with no other alternative. But that�s fortunately not me and I don�t want it to ever become me.
� 2007 Geoff Gladstone
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