Disability Advocates Want Statewide Protections Against Health-Care Rationing

One advocate says the pandemic is a “scary time” for persons with disabilities in Texas because there are no standards for how providers decide who gets medical equipment or medicine.

By Ashley LopezJuly 6, 2020 2:46 pm, , , ,

From KUT:

Disability rights advocates are pushing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a statewide order prohibiting health care rationing that discriminates against Texans with disabilities during the pandemic.

They want statewide standards that are similar to federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

Lisa Snead, an attorney at the group Disability Rights Texas, told KUT that states have already faced issues with health-care rationing. Rationing is when providers have to make a decision about who gets the limited supplies of medical equipment or medicine they have available. Some of those states have since been forced to implement statewide standards about how those decisions are made. Snead said the fact that Texas doesn’t have any standards in place right now is a problem.

“This means that in Texas, individual hospitals and doctors can make these allocation decisions. So, there is no transparency on how some of these decisions about rationing are being made, which makes this a really scary time for persons with disabilities,” Snead said.

Snead’s group and others asked Abbott to consider putting standards in place in April. She said the situation is getting more serious as COVID-19 cases surge in Texas.

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