COVID, Rationing, & Consumers With Disabilities: Where Are We?

The pandemic has brought the spotlight to many inequities in the health care system. One is the access to treatment (and soon, access to vaccines) for people with disabilities. A few months ago, the shortage of ventilators was a critical issue—causing states to look at their standards for crisis care plans. (These were described in Crisis Standards of Care: A Systems Framework for Catastrophic Disaster Response by the Institute of Medicine as “guidelines developed before disaster strikes to help health care provider organizations decide how to administer the best possible care when there are not enough resources to give . . .