Trump Expands His Cruelty To the Disabled, Starting With Disabled Children

Trump isn’t alone when it comes to not wanting to see, or even think about people with disabilities. Unfortunately he’s in a position to address his discomfort by more than simply turning his head, or even making negative or even mean comments. Trump can use the power of his office to inflict CRUELTY on people he wishes didn’t even exist, and he’s going after government programs that help disabled people live fuller lives.

Keep in mind this is a guy who mocked a disabled journalist.  When plans were being made for his super-duper-show-other-countries-how-it’s-done Military Parade in DC (which flopped!) he blew a gasket when told it would included disabled veterans wounded in combat. Trump said ‘nobody wants to see that.’ If he’d treat Veteran’s that way it’s not a surprise that his contempt would apply to other Americans.  However, as Alternet reports Trump has turned his contempt into outright cruelty by telling AG Blanche to send DOJ lawyers to the 11th Circuit to UN-do a ruling the government obtained forcing the state of Florida to provide the level of disability services mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act:

The Justice Department of the Trump administration has requested that a federal appeals court cancel the courtroom victory that the government won against Florida concerning the way children with complex medical needs are treated.

On Thursday, NPR said the Justice Department made the request in August, asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside its March decision and return the case to the district court. This came after the Justice Department reversed its long-held view that federal disability law requires states to help people receive care in community settings whenever appropriate, rather than unnecessarily placing them in institutions.

It’s a rather complex article and a bit difficult to follow so I’ll try to put it in plain terms:

• Title II and the Americans with Disabilities Act mandates governments down to the local level ensure certain services are provided to people with disabilities.
• Florida didn’t (and still doesn’t) want to comply so they went to court – and lost
• Florida, as was their right appealed to the 11th Circuit, one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country – and lost again
• Trump got back into the WH and Florida knew it had a friend so they decided to take another crack at denying services and shoving people into institutions. (Likely not much better than the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz.”)
• Trump doesn’t think people with disabilities are actual people with actual worth. Not one bit. So he told Blanche to help Florida (and by extension other conservative states that feel the same way) to help out.
• Blanche filed a motion with the 11th Circuit reversing the government’s position, claiming it had made an ‘oops’ and Title II didn’t really mean what the government had (until now) said it does. With no one to fight back the 11th Circuit remanded the case to the District Court where one presumes Florida will try again to get out from having to comply with federal law.
• If the government won’t oppose such an effort (and under Trump the DOJ won’t) it’s a bad moon rising for the disabled and their families that need help caring for them.

Yes, this administration’s ‘the cruelty is the point’ attitude goes beyond immigrants (even those granted status to live and work here legally) to the disabled.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that Trump has been known to say of those with disabilities ‘Why don’t they just go away somewhere and die?’ Followed by ‘If they won’t get out of sight and stay out of sight then shove them into institutions and let them die there.’ I know. He’s not the only person to think and even say such things. However he’s President and has the power to help deny services to those who need them.

So that’s what he’s set out to do. His adopted state of Florida has an entrenched Republican establishment and will jump at the chance to gut services to the disabled. Maybe not for veterans but non-veterans adults and even children will be fair game. DOJ is sending a clear sign that the federal government won’t be enforcing the ADA for the next couple of years. That’s more than enough time to dismantle a lot, and since it’s always easier to destroy than to build restoring those services will take years. If it can be done at all. Worse, since Florida is such a prominent state it’s a safe bet other red states will decide to gut services too.

Full disclosure here: Prior to being forced into early retirement over ten years ago on disability myself, my job was to manage the care of Developmentally Disabled adults. Both in West Virginia and after transferring to North Carolina regardless of my job title the duties were to put together an inter-disciplinary team of professionals needed to tend to the specific needs of individual clients, work with them to establish an annual treatment plan and then train staff to implement it. And then monitor how well it was being implemented. There are other programs for the disabled.  Many have no cognitive limitations at all. Sometimes their disability isn’t even readily apparent.

Regardless of level of disability a person can, with help live a fuller life than without it. You’d be surprised at how much some can actually understand and even DO – at least with some help. Sometimes a little, and sometimes quite a bit more than a little.  That’s where title II and the Americans with Disabilities Act comes in.  As the linked article explains, Florida didn’t want to provide at least the minimum required, so in 2013 the DOJ took them to court. The government won, and (conservative) Florida of course appealed.  It took until 2023 to finally get a ruling from the 11th Circuit upholding the District Court and that should have been the end of it.  From what I gather Florida didn’t try to pursue it at the SCOTUS level.

Still, few disabled people and their families/guardians are rich enough to make major campaign donations.  Those who can want their goddamned tax cuts and if business owners or owners/managers of buildings not have to make special accommodations for the disabled. Also, many school districts don’t want to spend money on the disabled either. Clearly they found a friend in Trump and wanted to go to court again to be able to deny and even cut federally mandated services.  Obviously their chances in court are great if the government isn’t willing to follow federal law and defend the ADA.

As I said the linked article is a bit dense but this part gives details of recent evens pretty well:

In 2023, after many years of legal action, a district court gave a decision in favor of the government and required Florida to alter its Medicaid system. The injunction required the state to improve care coordination and ensure that medically complex children received at least 90 percent of the private-duty nursing services they were authorized to receive.

Florida filed an appeal, but on March 31, the 11th Circuit maintained the government’s victory by affirming the district court’s findings of liability and deciding that the violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act were widespread enough to warrant systemwide relief, although it altered several aspects of the injunction.

The Justice Department then altered its legal stance. In its June 18 opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel at the department stated that neither Title II of the ADA nor Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act imposes an ‘integration mandate’ on states. The opinion acknowledged that its interpretation was “out of step with the common understanding” of the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C.

As a result, on August 13, the department submitted an unopposed motion to the 11th Circuit requesting that its March ruling be set aside and the case be sent back to the district court.

The services I provided were paid for by the Medicaid Waiver program every state has. In the years I worked in West Virginia exactly two of the families I knew of (in my agency and in two others) had the means to pay for it all out of their own pocket.  And in one instance it wasn’t for full services, but only day treatment/activity at a weekday facility for six hours. Almost every family I knew up there, and co-workers too were staunch Republicans who hated the notion of government paying for services to people. Yet they were in many cases getting upwards of 100k per year of assistance!  Well, logic and common sense aren’t exactly strengths with MAGA or MAGE Adjacent folks.

I mentioned that because while this particular case is about services to children under Medicaid you can bet it will take little time for the Trump administration to make wider cuts to Medicaid’s ability to provide help to all categories of disabled people.  I guess cruelty to immigrants just isn’t enough anymore for Trump to get his rocks off. So now he’s going after the disabled.  As a Veteran with partial disability I know they are already looking into cutting those benefits.  For the moment we’re talking about children so I’ll let a lawyer who specializes in this have the last word:

Jennifer Mathis, a disability rights lawyer employed by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, said to NPR that the reversal was “shocking.”

“To do that in a case that involves ripping children away from families, taking them out of the homes where they have families that want to take care of them, and to force those children to grow up in an institution, really is just unthinkable to me and is incredibly heartless,” Mathis said.

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