Carson Addresses Education & Healthcare in #PwDsVote 2016 Questionnaire

Washington, Jan. 29 – RespectAbility, a nonprofit organization working to empower people with disabilities to achieve the American dream, has asked all of the presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle to fill out a questionnaire on disability issues affecting people with disabilities (PwDs). Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign responded to our request with two links to materials, which address a few questions on the questionnaire.

We are presenting the campaign’s response below:

Q: Many people who are born with disabilities, especially minorities with learning and mental health differences, are not diagnosed and/or their disability issues go unaddressed. This leads to school dropouts and a “school to prison pipeline.” Do you have a plan to enable students with disabilities to get the services they need to succeed in school and life?

A: Special needs children should have more opportunities to learn and lead fulfilling lives. Therefore, we must give special needs students the option to choose where they attend school. We must also allow funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to be used towards tutors and other training programs.

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In response to two questions on healthcare including a plan to reform the benefits system (Medicare, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and SSDI) to enable PwDs to work to the best of their capacities as well as a general healthcare plan for PwDs, the Carson campaign responded with this link to a PDF of Carson’s healthcare plan. We invite you to click on the link and learn more about his plan.

When speaking in person with RespectAbility, Carson talked about learning about disability issues, his plan for improving the lives of PwDs and enabling PwDs to have jobs.

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RespectAbility has asked all the presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle to complete the same questionnaire. As of Friday, Jan. 29, we have received responses from Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie and Bernie Sanders. We will share responses from additional campaigns as we receive them. In addition, several candidates do have information on their websites including Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, John Kasich, Bernie Sanders and Rick Santorum.

The RespectAbility Report is a nonpartisan political commentary on the 2016 U.S. elections with a focus on disability issues. The RespectAbility Report has covered all of the Democratic and Republican candidates and coverage can be found at http://therespectabilityreport.org/.The RespectAbility Report is nonpartisan and does not endorse candidates.