Privilege

A lot of feminist blogs talk about privilege. This is not something I've ever talked about before, probably because disability ranks so low on the kyriarchy (I just learned what that word means) that it's hard to think of it within this context. But there can be privilege associated with disability. There's healthcare privilege.

I've been privileged to have great healthcare throughout my life. For example, my powerchair cost us a $10 copay. A multi-thousand $ surgery cost us a $10 copay. Of course that was just the surgeons' bill, anestesia and PT, and the actual bed and meals all had their own copays. As did the multiple copays/week for the rehab that took over a year. But the point is, even though the total costs of that surgery (including prescription copays) was thousands of $ or maybe 10s of thousands of $, it didn't cost the million $ that it most likely would have had my parents been forced to pay out of pocket. I wouldn't have been able to have the surgery I needed had I not had top notch health insurance that didn't have a cap on how much $ they'd pay out/year or stuck firmly to the number of visits/year (we still had to fight to get enough, put the point is that we got it).

I'm writing on this topic now because even though I've had just OK health insurance in the interim, for the last 15mos I've had kick ass federal insurance that I can be on for the rest of my life. The day before I went on my vacation a few weeks ago I went to pick up a refill on my valium as traveling aggravates my spasticity. As 30 2mg tablets of generic valium costs just $11.99 without insurance coverage, my copay with my kick ass insurance cost just 53 cents. As I opened up the change compartment of my wallet and counted out my 53 cents, I couldn't help but think about my privelge and about the 100s of thousands of people in this country who have to choose between groceries or medication.

My local grocery store honors rite aid, target, kmart coupons that come in the Sunday paper and get you a $10 gift card for every new or transfered prescription. So in essence the store paid me $9.47 for getting my prescription filled there. I went and bought hair clips and eye shadow with my $10. That is a luxury, as I have enough $ that I don't have to spend it on food. That to me is the highest form of privlege.