We use interchangeably the terms people with disabilities and disabled people throughout this article, to highlight disability as both in terms of impairment and in terms of social oppression. People with disabilities are also affected through reforms that specifically target them.
A series of policy developments — in the areas of health and labour, mainly — have promoted a neoliberal agenda that directly affects the lives of people with disability, causing in many cases material deprivation, insecurity, and stigmatisation [ 26 ]. Many vital health services, such as cancer-screening programmes, mental health services, and municipal public health services, have been severely cut [ 63 ].
Guided by the World Health Organisation [ 17 ], in this article we define disability as limitations in participation in any aspect of everyday life due to the interaction between impairment or illness and the environment. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name.
Given what we now know about the necessity of environmental goods for human prosperity and survival, a truly liberal policy would locate environmental factors as fundamental to all good public policy. This article is based on a critical analytical review of the literature and on two case studies, Chile and Greece.
Having free access to healthcare through such schemes will not benefit people who cannot even get to a healthcare facility because of, for example, lack of appropriate and affordable transportation [ 16 ]. Bell, D.
There is an extensive body of research on the impact of neoliberalism on access to healthcare for the general population [ 9 — 14 ]. Dobson, A. The sovereign debt crisis that hit Greece resulted in the end of the Greek socioeconomic model of —, and the transition from a mainly state-led familistic model characterised by heavy public indebtedness to a liberal, partly de-familialised capitalism [ 19 ].
Writing to the Prime Minister of Greece, the National Confederation of Disabled People [ 71 ] outlined the impact of neoliberal, austerity-driven policies on access to healthcare for people with disabilities.
Combined with what Adam and Papatheodorou [ 58 ], p.