Fuzzy Math

I have been having a recent exchange of words with a mother of a child with a disability who believes with all her heart that the government should not be supporting people with disabilities. She believes, bless her heart, that every family should raise their own money to support the needs of their children.

This, however, is fuzzy math and an extremely naive approach.

The cost of caring for an adult with a disability who needs 24 hour care is somewhere in the range of $50-$75,000 annually. Not only is this more than some families make in a year, if we had to rely on each family doing fundraisers to the tune of $75K a year, our friends and family would get extremely tired of us asking them for money every year. It just cannot be done by an individual this way. It is a full-time job to be a fundraiser. Furthermore, without a system in place to oversee and recruit service providers, the cost would go up for care because providers would have to develop complicated mechanisms to serve each family.

It is beyond naive to think that families are able to take on this monumental task. Those who think otherwise are not in this situation and do not understand how difficult this is. While some families are able to band together to create solutions for their children, so many cannot.

This kind of thinking is going to put us back in the dark ages... when people with disabilities were supported by sitting on street corners begging for money. At some point, I hope people are going to figure this out and stop this endless debate about whether or not our country is about equality for everyone - including economic equality - or not.