Harold Pollack is no longer amused by Rick Santorum. Here is Santorum this weekend:
One of the things that you don’t know about ObamaCare in one of the mandates is they require free prenatal testing. Why? Because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and, therefore, less care that has to be done, because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society. That too is part of ObamaCare — another hidden message as to what president Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country.
Even for Santorum, this is just remarkably odious. Here’s Harold:
I’m writing these words with my smiling brother-in-law Vincent sitting next to me, admiring the green lunchbox that we just bought him. Vincent lives with intellectual disabilities caused by fragile X syndrome. I find the above comments indescribably insulting.
Santorum’s comments are only made uglier by their utter lack of foundation…I’ve never heard any liberal health policy wonk promote genetic technologies to “cull the ranks of the disabled” or as part of any cost-cutting plan. That ugly meme is completely made up.
…Certainly liberals are willing to spend more money on disability services. I’ve published analyses showing that states’ 2008 voting share for John McCain was strongly correlated with reductions in state expenditures for intellectual disability services during the current recession. Most of the
major disability organizations supported ACA for the obvious reasons. Preexisting condition clauses, essential health benefits, health insurance for young adults, etc. are specifically pertinent for people living with physical and mental disabilities.
The chart on the right is the one Harold is talking about. As states get bluer, they spend proportionately more on intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) programs. As they get redder they spend less. And when the recession hit, the redder the state, the more they cut back on I/DD spending. You can draw whatever conclusion you want from this. If you’re as vile as Santorum, you might conclude that conservatives hate the disabled. If you’re not, you might conclude that redder states tend to be poorer than bluer states and simply can’t afford as much.
But you certainly can’t conclude that either blue states or liberals in general are trying to rid the nation of the disabled. The kind of person who thinks that has no place in a presidential race.
