#mental hospitals CAN and SHOULD be GOOD THINGS ACTUALLY. but in countries with shitty healthcare that's very hard to find. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skin-slave · 4 years

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Before we shit on non-voters, can we acknowledge that there's a de facto disenfranchisement of sick and disabled citizens? Inaccessibility and emergency are huge factors in low voter turnout.

How do you vote if your polling place isn't accessable and you're not able to travel elsewhere? How do you vote if you're in an inpatient care facility? How do you vote if you're hospitalized unexpectedly? How do you vote if you've recently been hospitalized and are on bed rest at home? None of those things make a voter ineligible, but they do prevent voting.

There are organizations like Patient Voting that volunteer to help, but they can only help if a voter knows that they exist. Hospitals and inpatient facilities are not required to inform patients that they still have the right to vote. Polling places aren't all accessable and can legally shunt disabled voters elsewhere without providing transportation. Misinformation abounds, leading voters to believe they no longer have the right to vote if they're in care or disabled. (Lots of states do actually have really shitty disenfranchisement laws on the books, but most of it is bullshit.)

If you're mentally ill or disabled but have not been found incompetent by a judge, even if you have a legal guardian, you have the right to vote! If you have a sudden illness or injury and are in the hospital on election day, you have the right to vote! If you're recuperating and can't make it to the polls, you have the right to vote!

Personally, I think voting should be mandatory. It is in most democratic countries. Not mandatory in a "you didn't vote so you're in trouble" kinda way. Mandatory in a "the govt has to collect your vote, no matter what accommodations are needed, and there are consequences for failure" kinda way. The very idea that 50% of US citizens don't vote and that it's packaged as "oh well, I guess they didn't want to," is unacceptable. If our govt is to be for the ppl and by the ppl, it has that responsibility to the ppl.

We know damn good and well that the citizens who most need the govt to do its fucking job are disenfranchised, in spirit if not in letter. The ppl who've seen the prison system, the ppl who depend on intensive healthcare, the ppl who use social programs, the ppl who face discrimination, the ppl who work for poverty wages, the ppl who can't get what they need. Being pissed over low voter turnout is completely valid. But let's point that anger in the right direction, spread information, help each other, and fight for change.

#anda hates politics #america fucking sucks #voteforchange #voter registration #no matter how youre gonna vote you have the right to do so #voter disenfranchisement #ableist bullshit

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kylo-renakin · 7 years

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So there was this buzzfeed article recently about a senate panel voting to include birth control in women’s healthcare in the military, which is great. Of course, it devolved into a healthcare ideology battle in the comments, and one of the people commenting on it sent me into a moral outrage, and I just really needed to vent. So I’m going to have my rant here, because my perception is that Tumblr is mostly full of good people who will understand/agree with this.

So, some of my followers may know that I come from New Zealand. (I am now living in the States.) New Zealand has Universal Health Care. We actually have a two tier system, like a lot of countries. You can buy private insurance if you want, and the quality is usually higher, but healthcare is guaranteed to all on the first tier.

In my opinion, this is how it should be in the States.

Now, the woman in the comments says here that “no one is entitled anything just for living and you should have to pay for your own products and services”. In products and services, she’s including healthcare. This sounds like a reasonable enough premise, right? Everyone should work for their keep.

The problem is, if you disseminate her stance, it becomes clear pretty quickly how callous and cruel this ideology can be. Food, clean drinking water, healthcare, a roof over your head--these are all “products and services” that have to be paid for. The things you need to literally survive have to be paid for. What about people who can’t work? I’m not talking about the people who choose not to--and I’m not going to pretend there aren’t some of those people, too, because there are, and I’ve known some myself--but the people who actually can’t work for their keep?

I’ll use an example close to me. My uncle has downs. He is in his forties, and has been cared for by the New Zealand government and taxpayer dollars his whole life. Now, based on her ideology that no-one is entitled to healthcare, or food, or shelter, and that they should work for it--my uncle should be left out on the street to die. He can’t work. His mental faculty is similar to a small child. He’s able to do some small jobs here and there, he’s even allowed to cook for himself at his community (with supervision), he likes to sweep the floors at the local stadium for fun. But he needs constant care, he needs supervision, he can’t hold a steady job, buy insurance, manage his own finances, drive, take himself to the hospital. The idea that you should have to work to earn the basics to live (food, healthcare) is barbaric in cases like his.

And there are so many other cases. Mental and physical disabilities. Chronic pain sufferers. Mental health issues. There are many, many people who would work if they could, but they can’t and this woman, and others like her, would have them out in the cold because they’re not “entitled” to live. There are people who are literally bedridden from their illnesses or disabilities. And apparently those people are entitled to nothing?

Fuck that. Fuck that hard.

It goes even further than this. How about the people working minimum wage, barely able to afford food, bills, rent? Even the cheapest, shittiest insurance can cost them over $100 a month. To people in dire straights, $100 per month is money better spent on food and transportation to and from their shitty, no-appreciation, low-income jobs. She and her ilk argued in the thread that minimum wage jobs are only stepping stones, and it’s those people’s own faults for not trying harder or looking for something higher paying.

Are you kidding me? People with learning disabilities can struggle to learn in school, and that can affect their job opportunities for life. Some people are naturally shy and don’t do well in interviews, and get looked over for promotions. And these people are getting told they simply need to work harder to be able to afford healthcare for themselves. It’s utter bullshit. I know people who work harder in their low-income jobs than people earning twice as much as them do. How hard you work, for most people, has very, very little affect on your paycheck. My last job paid me $50,000 a year. And you know what’s hilarious about this? The job I had before that paid me $42,000 a year, and was harder and more stressful for me by far. I was being paid more for an easier job. So I loathe people who claim that how much you earn reflects the effort you’ve put in. I know people who have worked themselves to the bone in low-paying jobs, while other people grow up in elite families and have opportunities beyond anything ordinary people get. You think Kylie Jenner worked hard to become rich? She was just lucky to be born into a wealthy family.

People work hard even when they’re poor--often more so when they’re poor. This elitist attitude from some Americans just sickens me.

So, yeah. I’m pretty done with all the conservatives in America who behave like this. In New Zealand, people who bitch about public healthcare are flat-out ignored, because it’s accepted that no matter how you were born, what disabilities you have, what social disadvantages you have, everyone has the right to live. Healthcare is part of your right to live.

And yes, I know that there are people who abuse welfare. Like I said, I’ve met some myself. And it pisses me off, too. But at the end of the day, I care more about the people who actually do need the assistance than I’m angry about the people abusing the system. My priorities will always have me supporting welfare, because it makes zero sense to punish the people who actually need the help just because you’re mad at some people who you perceive to be lazy. I genuinely think that anybody who says healthcare should not be a right of every citizen is selfish, cruel, and callous.

In small groups, where assisting someone else can mean death, hunger, danger to yourself and your loved ones, I can understand not helping out. But in a society as large and as rich as this one, to deny people the basic right to live by denying their healthcare coverage is just sick, and I am appalled by people like this.

#universal health care #healthcare #politics #wordy #social justice #welfare #me #rant

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