by Jack Bragen
Donald Trump just signed his big bill. It isn’t a “beautiful bill.” It is a crime against the American middle class and poor. And we are in a war of misinformation—but that’s beside the point. This will impact me as a disabled writer, and it won’t be “beautiful” at all.
I am at the bottom, and I can attest from that perspective to all of the power-hungry politicians who want in on the political and monetary pie. My perspective is that of a bug on the ground who Trump casually stomps to death even though he doesn’t really have to do that. I live on public benefits because writing barely pays anything, and I’m truly disabled for medical and other reasons. I need government benefits to stay alive and intact.
I’m not exaggerating about being disabled. It is not obvious to people until you see me trying to walk a block to the corner store. It is not obvious unless you see me without having taken my medication that manages overt symptoms of psychosis, but that also puts a huge damper on my ability to function. If I weren’t struggling with a disability, I would have shed the yoke of public benefits decades ago. No conscientious or sensible person would choose to live on disability benefits over working, if we have a reasonable choice.
People who rely on Social Security and/or Social Supplemental Income to live on are not doing so for the fabulous lifestyle it provides—mainly because it doesn’t provide one. It is generally a move we were forced into by circumstances we could not resolve. Most people would rather be working.
A significant perk of working is that you are considered socially acceptable. Most people in the economic middle do not think of disabled people who live on their tax dollars. It is different when they finally have a family member or close friend who becomes or is disabled and can’t compete in a job situation or can’t complete an Ivy League education and who chooses something less demanding.
A counselor once upon a time, while speaking animatedly, likened mental health work opportunities to “put[ting] a broom in your hand and shov[ing] pills down your throat.”
That was true for a number of jobs where the requirement was primarily to have a body and to do a relatively simple job. When I was 17, a head of a janitorial service I worked for briefly told me that I was hired “because we needed a body.” He had initiated the call with the line: “Your check is in the mail.” I don’t understand why he chose the path of maximum offensiveness. Maybe he believed I couldn’t do anything about it. This was probably accurate. But I hounded this employer until I was paid for the little bit of work I performed. I also threatened to sue.
Trump will cut off any mentally ill Social Security recipients who appear able-bodied. This will cause a lot of deaths on the street, and a lot more incarceration. Once he rams through his big hideous bill, it won’t be the end of Trump’s destruction. He is planning to do a lot more damage than we have seen. He has more than three years left in office, assuming his health remains good, and there is no guarantee he will go along with any sort of peaceful transfer of power. He will very likely remain in office for the rest of his life.
Being on the bottom and looking up at a giant shoe about to smash me to death is not exceedingly comfortable. But I have been in that situation, so I can claim to know something about it.
Tuning into the news recently, I learned of the work requirement in Trump’s bill: If you don’t have at least 80 hours of employment, classwork or volunteering per month, you won’t get Medicaid. This puts mentally disabled people in the crosshairs.
I know from experience that antipsychotics block the ability to do physical work. At 18, I tried very hard to do janitor work while medicated. The misery and difficulty of this were beyond description. Antipsychotics don’t just block the area affected by symptoms, but all parts of the central nervous system. In 1983, I quit my medication and successfully worked as a janitor for about a year and a half, earning $10,000, which at the time wasn’t spectacular but was acceptable money. Then I became ill and was even worse off than I had been when I first was put on medication. After that, working was out of the question.
You must not require mentally disabled “able-bodied” men to work to get Medicaid. Such an edict will cause millions of recovered mentally ill people to die on the street or in prison. This will come to pass in 2027, after the midterm elections, as long as the government adheres to the current timeline of the legislation.
This could morph into a totalitarian nightmare if Trump takes it far enough. History is filled with examples of forced labor, such as Nazi Germany or Stalin-era Russia. Maybe we won’t see anything so extreme, but it would still be bad.
Jack Bragen currently lives in Clayton. His writings are searchable.
