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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why not get a job and work? There are quadriplegics on ventilators who work. There are people with severe multiple sclerosis who don't demand our tax dollar support them. Why can't you work?[/quote]

How about we do some extrapolation from your quad example. Being a quad and being able to work requires a lot in the way of both skills and supports. Perhaps, if your previous work was in an area that required only intellectual skills, if you became paralyzed by an accident that yielded a high enough settlement to pay for all the medical and personal care you needed and modifications for your home and transportation and technologies to enable to to perform that job, possibly. Or if you were already wealthy enough to afford these costs. But you also have to be "lucky" enough that someone else was 100% liable for your injury, it did not involve a worker's comp claim, and if it occurred in the course of medical care you were able to prove the provider absolutely failed to meet standard of care (80% of malpractice claims that go to trial lose). If you don't have a way to pay for 24/7 personal care on a vent, you are going to be living in a long-term acute care facility.

How many disabled people do you know? If they aren't working, do you ask them why? Do you ask them if they would prefer to be working, and what it would take for them to be able to? Most of the time, someone who is on disability has also been out of the workforce for awhile (since if not, you do not qualify) so besides whatever barriers they face due to the disability itself, including the possibility  that they cannot possibly perform their former work, they are looking at a gap in the resume, which means either the gap is going to affect their odds of being considered (AI at work!) or they have to disclose the disability in order to explain the gap at the outset. Most employers are not going to go out of their way to promote hiring of people w/disabilities (plus now that is DEI and considered bad) if they can select candidates from people who do not present possible challenges, including fear of liability. 
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