Experts have lauded the disability plan released by Bernie Sanders’ campaign this week, days before the Iowa caucuses.
Abigail Abrams, writing for Time magazine described the plan as “the most ambitious” of any candidates’ plans in the 2020 field.
The plan notes that 1 in 4 Americans suffer from some form of disability, but in their policy statement, the Sanders campaign laments the fact that these individuals have historically been “segregated and ignored”.
The plan includes a number of headline items, including:
- A pledge to create a National Office of Disability Inclusion, to be run by a person with a disability, to ensure policy ensures inclusiveness and promote compliance with the Americans with disabilities act
- Appointing a Senior White House disability adviser
- Taking Medicare and Medicaid funded services away from for profit providers
- Winding back the Trump administration’s attack on the ability of home care workers to unionise
- Using an executive order to promote disability employment
- Reversing the Trump attacks on Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Incomes
- Ensuring his Attorney General enforced the Supreme Court decision in Olmstead v LC making states provide disability services in integrated settings
Sanders was criticised for relatively weak disability policy in 2016, so a big part of the effort to develop a policy this time around, including reaching out to experts who helped shape the Clinton campaign’s policy alongside others.
With Americans with disabilities forming such a large part of the electorate, the policy could be crucial to Sanders’ eventual success.
