Bernie Sanders’s Evolution on Disability Policy

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AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Bernie Sanders speaks with reporters in Washington. His disability plan brought together a big tent of experts, including people who didn't support him in the 2016 campaign.

In 2016, Senator Bernie Sanders was largely silent on disability issues during his presidential campaign. But in 2020, he has rapidly emerged as the best candidate in the field on disability rights. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s disability policy plan is excellent. But Sanders’ plan, released today, goes several steps further, embracing an audacious and unabashedly radical vision.

During the last Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton put forth community-specific policies like employment for autistic adults and subminimum wages for people with disabilities. Meanwhile, Sanders and his campaign had little policy work of their own to counter this. Journalist David Perry covered disability issues during the 2016 election and expressed his frustration with Sanders in that period. “It was extremely difficult to get any specifics at the time from the Sanders campaign. My many requests for comment or explanation went generally unreturned and their website contained no detailed information,” he told the Prospect. “I'm so glad that's changed in 2020.”

Silence wasn’t the only problem. Medicare for All has long been the crown jewel of Sanders’ policy platform. Unfortunately, earlier iterations of the plan contained provisions that would have harmed disabled people with the highest amount of need. For example, Long-Term Services and Supports, a part of Medicaid that provides skilled nursing and personal care for people who need daily assistance, would have been more limited than it currently is. Worse still, it would have limited spending on at-home care to 65 percent of spending on care in a facility.

The central issue in disability rights is the right to live in normal society. We want to live in normal neighborhoods and have normal jobs. We want to go to normal restaurants and normal concerts. We want normal lives. In order to have normal lives, some people need significant support. They need staff to help them get dressed or go grocery shopping. Less money spent on home care would have forced people who need more support out of their homes and back into nursing homes and state hospitals. Sanders presented himself as the big-picture candidate, but for disabled people, these details are a life or death issue.

Sanders's disability plan was developed by a big tent—the kind of coalition many commentators have been skeptical Sanders could pull off.

In 2017, Sanders introduced a new version of Medicare for All that no longer limited long-term care spending or spending on home care. It was a good step to regain community trust, and generally well-received. Then, as his second presidential run kicked off, Sanders did something unexpected. In 2019, he reached out to disability community leaders and asked for help formulating a policy plan.

Some of the advisers, like former Obama appointee Ari Ne’eman, had counseled Hillary Clinton in 2016. Rebecca Cokley, another advisor thanked at the end of the plan, heads up the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Sanders didn’t just seek out people who already love him to develop his plan. Instead, it was developed by a big tent—the kind of coalition many commentators have been skeptical Sanders could pull off.

The product may seem long and terrifyingly complex at first glance, but the overall message is clear: Disabled people have a right to live the same full, complex lives other people take for granted. Sanders promises many of the same things Warren promises—Marriage equality for people who rely on disability benefits, an end to subminimum wages that often work out to pennies an hour, and stronger enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. But where Sanders surpasses Warren is in his clarity of vision and his willingness to aggressively pursue what he describes as the “moral imperative” of full equality and inclusion for disabled people.

Sanders stands out as the only candidate to present community living and support for people with disabilities as a solution to the large numbers of people with mental illnesses in our prisons and jails. Rather than shuffle people into forced treatment or opening new, rebranded insane asylums, Sanders advocates for real mental health parity. He explicitly defines mental illness as a disability like any other disability, requiring the same robust community supports and inclusion owed to any other disabled person.

In several areas, Sanders goes beyond what Warren offered in her disability policy plan. For example, Senator Warren states that she would like to bring Supplemental Security Payments up to match the Federal Poverty Level. Sanders pushes for 125% of the Federal Poverty Level. While that may seem like a small difference, it carries meaning: Senator Sanders is asserting that disabled people who rely on SSI deserve more than just the bare minimum.

The most daring part of Sanders’ plan is his willingness to wield executive action. A common criticism of Sanders is that Congress may be too polarized to get much done, let alone to enact his vision of sweeping, systemic change. But in this plan, Sanders promises to use whatever authority he can muster to solve problems stuck in legislative gridlock.

For example, a longtime problem in disability benefits is the waiting lists for Home and Community Based Services. People in every U.S. state are waiting to get the care they need to live normal lives at home. The waiting lists persist because legislation has been working through Congress for years to address the issue. One of the most recent efforts, the Disability Integration Act, appears stillborn. Sanders suggests using an executive order to immediately incentivize states to abolish their waiting lists, opening up the dream of a normal life to tens of thousands of disabled Americans who might otherwise be trapped with inadequate, unpaid care from family or institutionalization.

In releasing his plan just before the first caucuses and primaries begin, Sanders has opted to make disability rights part of his closing argument for why he should represent the Democratic Party in the presidential election. In doing so, he has demonstrated astonishing growth. We hear plenty about Sanders’ consistency, his unyielding commitment to core issues; it’s presented as a sign of strength. But in this case, Sanders has risen from being among one of the worst candidates on disability policy to the leading disability rights champion of the primary.