Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Look and think before slashing services to people with disabilities

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Staff

Vicki Smith

Disability is a natural part of the human experience. It does not discriminate. It crosses all income brackets, striking every age group at any time. The disability experience is open to people of all races, cultures and ethnicities. It accepts people with any religious belief, welcoming all points of view into its embrace. It does not differentiate based on gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. Disability is bipartisan, pulling members of every political point of view into its chambers.

One out of five North Carolinians will have a disability during his or her life. These disabilities include physical disabilities resulting from spinal cord injury or traumatic brain injury, intellectual disabilities, deafness and blindness, and mental illness, including bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress syndrome. Nothing about disability is simple. It is a complex phenomenon that affects every part of society. Disability has a profound impact on everyone with whom it comes into contact. Experiencing a disability changes forever the individual with a disability and their family and friends. 

If that change wasn’t challenging enough, North Carolinians with disabilities are now faced with an even greater challenge. With Republicans now in control of the General Assembly, new leadership will decide how services for thousands of people with disabilities will be funded. This scares the heck out of much of the disability community – the threat of less government usually translates into cuts in critical government-funded programs like Medicaid. That fear is reinforced by what is predicted to be a $4 billion shortfall in revenue. North Carolina is in dire straits. 

And that puts the few gains made with recent mental health reforms at risk. Individuals who have been successfully living in their communities may have their services cut to the point that they have to move to more restrictive settings. Cuts will result in greater costs down the road, because the needs of people with disabilities just don’t go away.

Fewer community-based services will result in unnecessary transfers to other more expensive environments – emergency hospitalizations or jail. 

But there is an alternative. Instead of focusing on cuts to Medicaid, why not take this opportunity to stop following the flawed plan of mental health reform – one that everyone agrees has failed – and really move from relying on more expensive institutional care to developing comprehensive community services? Community-based care is not only cheaper in the long run, it improves quality of life, creates jobs, benefits the larger community and is what almost all people with disabilities want. Instead of simply making cuts, reducing immediate costs for the short term, let’s fix the service system. Instead of smaller government, wouldn’t it be better to have smarter government? 

Why is the state still making decisions based on a plan that has failed over and over again? How can the governor or the General Assembly know where to make cost-saving changes until a thorough evaluation of the current plan has been completed? Expanding and strengthening community-based services is common ground for the disability community and the Republican leadership if legislators take a hard look at costs. Why not call for a moratorium on any new major changes until a new plan can be developed? For example, constructing expensive and flawed buildings – like the new Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro – is pure politics and part of the flawed planning started under the Easley administration. 

Since change is inevitable, let’s be smart about it. Cutting services now without deliberate and thoughtful thinking will cost more in the long run. Decisions about government-funded services are not just about money – they are about people. These folks are not strangers; they are sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. We know what disability is and what it is not. Disability is not is a political issue. Disability cannot be categorized as a special interest. It is everyone’s interest. There is common ground – let’s use it to build a strong foundation for the future.

Vicki Smith is executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina.

1 thought on “Look and think before slashing services to people with disabilities”

  1. bill speight says:
    December 26, 2010 at 2:01 am

    Democrats in NC have been in charge of funding for people with disabilities for over 100 years. And you are worried about Republicans?

Comments are closed.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme