Single-Payer Healthcare and People with Disabilities

Overview | Panelists’ Remarks | Keynote Speaker Remarks | Speaker Bios | Issues | Actions | Resources

An older white woman with blond hair sits on a couch gesturing with her arms. Across from her is a middle-aged man with dark hair sitting in a power wheelchair smiling.
Elizabeth Warren talking with Ady Barkan, single-payer health care advocate who died November 1, 2023. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Warren)

Overview

We believe that single-payer universal healthcare is a human right and would improve the lives of everyone in the US, but we acknowledge that it on its own won’t necessarily solve the issues of ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. that currently exists in our medical system.

We need to work with and listen to the concerns of the disability justice community, as well as other marginalized communities, so that single-payer initiatives can incorporate solutions to those concerns. We believe that if we work together with all people in the community, we can achieve an equitable healthcare system for all.

On March 23, 2024, One Payer States, Justice for All Network, and Progressive Democrats of America held a summit on single-payer universal health care and people with disabilities.

View a recording of the summit
Policy paper on healthcare and PwD
  • Dr. Kimberly Jackson, Board Member with the Colorado Cross Disability Coalition, and Chair of the Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Advisory Council 
    • Has multiple conditions that may need treatment with drugs that are considered risky. Would like to have a system where there are exceptions to the rules and not have to fight for everything you need.
    • There needs to be a good exceptions/appeals process for services and durable medical equipment, anything that needs to be “approved” first before it can be provided to the person needing it.
    • Better options for attendant care – Kim needs to hire attendants herself to make sure they can meet her needs.
    • Need to have options for people when they are discharged from a hospital or facility and don’t have the resources for being cared for at home.
    • Need to consider the whole system – housing, transportation, etc. for people when they are accessing healthcare.
  • Vesper Moore, Indigenous Disability Activist & Leader
    • People with disabilities need to be included throughout the process when we talk about health care. They need access to specialty care, including alternative healing practices that can be provided by indigenous communities benefitting them economically as well.
    • Peer support should be covered. For example, people coming out of mental health crises could be supported by respite centers run by peers. People with disabilities are often viewed as disposable or dangerous so education is needed for health care workers to avoid mistreatment.
    • Tribal people who live off the reservation (in urban areas) need to have access to community care provided by their peers. We need to listen to what the local community needs.
  • Michael Neil, Legislative Liaison, Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition; Board Member, Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care
    • Would like to be able to have a job without losing Medicaid and access to support for paying for attendants. Single-payer healthcare would have to provide for in-home care so people with disabilities can work and pay taxes.
    • Need to address the difficulty of finding in-home attendants. Healthcare workers need to be paid adequately, have housing allowances, free tuition, sick and vacation pay.

Keynote Speaker

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Michigan’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives; member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Natural Resources Committee, where she leads on critical issues including affordable and accessible health care; and  co-chair of the Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus.

  • She is working on keeping Telehealth as an option for care when appropriate.
  • She is a strong proponent of the current single-payer national single-payer health care bills – Jayapal’s H.R. 3421 – Medicare for All Act and Sanders’ S.1655 – Medicare for All Act.
  • We all need to keep on fighting.

Speaker Bios

Dr. Kimberley Jackson

Dr. Jackson grew up in New Jersey, and graduated from Rutgers University with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. She attended medical school at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Osteopathic Medicine, from which she graduated a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine in 2008.

Dr. Jackson was a family medicine physician in Pueblo, Colorado until 2012, when symptoms related to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome forced her to leave practice. With her slowly progressing health conditions and resulting disabilities, she began working with the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition (CCDC) in 2013, on disability rights around healthcare. Dr. Jackson was elected co-chair of the Colorado Public Health Workforce Collaborative, which is focused on rebuilding the public health workforce in Colorado in an equitable and sustainable manner.

She serves on multiple boards and committees for Colorado Medicaid, is chair of the State Medical Assistance and Services Advisory Council, and vice chair of the Colorado Hospital Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise board. In 2021, she was appointed chair of the Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Advisory Council, which works with the Colorado Prescription Drug Affordability Board to make medications more affordable for Coloradans. She is also board secretary for CCDC.

Vesper Moore

Vesper Moore is an Indigenous activist and leader deeply involved in promoting mental health and disability rights through activism, leadership, organizing, public speaking, and education. Vesper focuses on cultivating social movements and enhancing public awareness to foster lasting social change. They have actively contributed to the establishment of mental health organizations worldwide and have fought to uplift civil rights in the United States. 

Vesper has brought the perspectives of people with mental health challenges and disabilities to national and international spaces with their advocacy. Vesper works with both the United States government and the United Nations in shaping strategies around trauma, intersectionality, and disability rights. They have been at the forefront of legislative reform to shift the societal paradigm surrounding mental health.

Michael Neil

Michael Neil is a Denver, CO native with Spina Bifida and Upper Motor Neuron Dysfunction.  He began volunteering as a political organizer in 1998 by phone-banking with the Gail Schoettler for Governor campaign. In the wake of the 2000 election, he helped form the Green-Democratic Alliance at Colorado College and was a part of both the local Amnesty International Chapter and Colorado College Fair Labor from 2000-2003. Michael was an intern for Colorado Progressive Coalition in 2002. In graduate school at the University of Denver, he joined the Center on Rights Development from 2006-2007 and the DU Task Force on Modern Slavery from 2007 to 2008.

His academic work focused on John Rawls and the intersection of theories of democracy and disability politics and citizenship. Upon his dissertation completion in 2013, he became a part-time ADA Compliance Investigator for the Civil Rights Enforcement and Education Center. From 2015 to 2016, Michael was appointed by the Governor to the Disability Benefit Support Contract Committee, which became the Disability Funding Council in 2016, and which he has chaired since late 2017. He joined the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition in 2015 as a legislative liaison.  Throughout his life, Michael has been a consumer of both Medicaid and Medicare, which demonstrated the benefits of not having to worry about whether his frequent doctor’s visits or eighteen surgeries would be covered. Through those experiences, Michael became a great supporter of single-payer healthcare.

Representative Debbie Dingell

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell represents Michigan’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Natural Resources Committee, where she leads on critical issues including affordable and accessible health care, clean energy and water, domestic manufacturing and supply chain resilience, and protecting our wildlife and natural resources.

Her collaborative workstyle lends itself to bicameral work, most importantly on long-term care, as she authored the Better Care Better Jobs Act with Senator Bob Casey to strengthen and expand access to the long-term care system while also supporting the direct care workforce. As a fierce advocate for reform to our nation’s broken health care system, she is also the co-author of Medicare For All to finally guarantee care for all Americans.

For the veteran community, Dingell meets with VFW posts and visits VA hospitals in the district and even improved the Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning (SAIL) rating in the Ann Arbor VA hospital.

An active civic and community leader, Dingell is a recognized national advocate for women and children. She successfully fought to have women included in federally funded health research and advocated for greater awareness of women’s health issues overall, including breast cancer and heart health. She is a founder and former chair of the National Women’s Health Resource Center and the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Debbie currently resides in Ann Arbor. She holds both a B.S.F.S. in Foreign Services and an M.S. in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University.

Issues

Some other issues that we didn’t have time to cover in the summit:

  • Equipment: making sure people with disabilities can get equipment that they need and can use to conduct their daily living activities without causing more injury to themselves. Need less restrictions on getting approval for equipment and where it can be used. Make sure that things like cushions are included so the user doesn’t get secondary injuries.
  • Access: health facilities need to be fully accessible to people with all types of disabilities and for all types of care, including reproductive care. There should be staff trained in different modes of communication.
  • Bias: health care and medical staff need to be trained to listen to people with disabilities and respect that they know what their needs are and what’s best for them. Acknowledge that people with disabilities have sex lives and needs around reproductive care.
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI is increasingly being used in healthcare decision making but it has white CIS gender male bias – how do we deal with this?

Actions

  • Advocate re. disability with your local single-payer organization
  • Advocate re. single-payer with your local disability organization
  • Form alliances between single-payer groups and disability groups

Resources