National Council on Disability Statement

Highlights

■ Longstanding policy

challenges of the disability

community have been

exacerbated by the global

pandemic. The pandemic

has unmasked the most

deadly and extreme forms of

state-sanctioned abelism.

■ The predicate to live, to learn 

and to earn, is to attain and 

maintain good health.

■ Therefore, during 

Gallegos's tenure as 

Chairman, as a Council, the 

agency's primary focus will 

be on healthcare and 

associated issues, while 

continuing to advance work 

in other areas, as well. 

■ NCD's moments of greatest 

impact have been when it has 

worked most closely and 

authentically with the 

community. We value your 

input and welcome it. 

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Vision and Priority Statement of New NCD 

Chairman Andrés Gallegos

February 16, 2021 – It is a privilege to serve as Chairman of the National Council 

on Disability, an independent federal agency that for the past 42 years has been 

at the forefront of the fight for civil rights for persons with disabilities in this country 

and advising the President, the Vice President, and federal policymakers on ways 

to improve their lives on a daily basis. An agency that serves as the national voice 

of the disability community within the Federal Government. A large part of what 

makes it a privilege is the ability to work closely with an immensely talented and 

dedicated staff, now led by Anne Sommers McIntosh, our new Executive Director, 

and impassioned and equally talented Council Members.

Today, the challenges before us are enormous. We are in the midst of an 

economic catastrophe. The labor participation rate for people with disabilities is 

less than half that of nondisabled counterparts. In addition, the unemployment 

rate for persons with disabilities is nearly double that of persons without 

disabilities. Those disparities contribute to a poverty rate among persons with 

disabilities that is nearly three times as high as people without disabilities. 

Throughout the country, persons with disabilities continue to face a profound and 

long-standing housing crisis given the dearth of affordable and accessible 

housing. 

Transportation barriers continue to exist as the disability community continues to 

suffer from a lack of reliable affordable transportation options, and in far too many 

communities, persons with mobility disabilities who utilize mobility devices are 

forced to compete with vehicular traffic on the streets because of the absence, or 

the disrepair, of municipal sidewalks and curb cuts. Increasingly, students with 

disabilities are being subjected to harsh disciplinary practices and, given a school 

nursing shortage, are not provided with consistent nursing services at school that 

would allow them to focus more on their academics than on their well-being. 

Many public schools still lack the required physical accessibility requiring many 

students with mobility disabilities who utilize mobility devices to attend classes in 

schools outside of their neighborhoods, and lack programmatic accessibility 

ensuring full inclusion for all students with disabilities. 

Persons with disabilities are also negatively impacted by federal fiscal policy that 

always looks to reduce funding for Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and other 

federal programs that persons with disabilities and those who love them 

desperately depend upon to sustain them.

Many of those issues have been exacerbated by the global pandemic. A 

pandemic that has disproportionately affected the health and well-being of
persons with disabilities, who not because of disability per se, but due to 

underlying health conditions are at a greater risk for contracting the virus, a 

higher risk of hospitalization once the virus is contracted, and a greater risk of 

dying from the virus. Persons with disabilities are vulnerable to the extreme 

effects of the virus given the decades of neglect in meaningfully addressing the 

chronic and profound health disparities between persons with disabilities and 

those without, and decades of neglect in addressing systemic and pervasive 

barriers to accessible healthcare. A pandemic that has unmasked the most 

extreme and deadly form of state-sanctioned ableism manifested in 

discriminatory crisis standards of care and rationing policies that in many 

instances categorically defined persons with disabilities as persons whose lives 

are not worth treating, and whose lives are not worth vaccinating or vaccinating 

with any urgency. A pandemic that has given license to many healthcare 

professionals to publicly express their explicit bias against persons with 

disabilities.

In 2009, the National Council on Disability published The Current State of Health 

Care for People Disabilities. In that report and others subsequent reports, I noted 

the Council was fond of the overarching theme – Living, Learning and Earning – 

to describe the fundamental needs of persons disabilities. In 2010, I served as a 

delegate to NCD’s historic two-day Policy Summit for People with Disabilities 

designed to translate current knowledge about the problems people with 

disabilities were experiencing in all areas of life, including health, healthcare and 

health outcomes into a plan for action. Throughout the Summit, Living, Learning 

and Earning was a recurring theme. Since the Summit, that theme has stuck with 

me and has helped crystallize my focus as a disability rights attorney and 

advocate. It is without exaggeration that the predicate to our ability, as persons 

with disabilities, to live, to learn and to earn, is to attain and maintain good health, 

and that has never been truer than now because of the pandemic. 

It’s for those reasons that during my tenure as Chairman, as a Council, our 

abiding focus will be on healthcare and the breadth of issues associated 

therewith. Foremost, all things COVID and addressing the harsh lessons learned 

and that we’re still learning from the pandemic; accessibility to accessible 

healthcare, dental care, behavioral health, etc.; addressing the social 

determinants of health contributing to the disparities in health and health 

outcomes; addressing implicit and explicit bias against persons with disabilities in 

healthcare; advocating for dedicated funding for home and community-based 

services; adoption of the Access Board’s voluntary standards for accessible 

medical and diagnostic equipment; not just preserving, but strengthening our 

federal nondiscrimination rights to accessible healthcare (and beyond); 

recognizing the importance, and advocating for the protection, of direct service 

providers and family caregivers; looking for solutions to address the dire 

communication needs of persons who are Deaf, hearing-impaired, blind, visuallyimpaired and persons with cognitive disabilities in healthcare settings, among 

many other important related issues to address. 

While that will be our primary focus, it will not be our sole focus. We will work Page 2 of 3 closely with federal partners and legislators to work on commitments expressed in
NCD welcomes letters and 

statements outlining your 

organizational policy priorities. 

To share your organization's or 

coalition's policy priorities with 

NCD or to request a meeting 

with NCD, please email 

Nicholas Sabula, Public Affairs 

Specialist, at nsabula@ncd.gov. 

the President’s disability plan, even as we advise for greater efforts. We will 

continue to educate policymakers on the incompatibility of arcane disability 

programs and laws, like subminimum wages paid to people with disabilities, to 

modern national disability goals and policies. And in the months ahead, we will 

highlight the disparities in eligibility for, and benefits under, certain federal 

programs that exist between U.S. citizens with disabilities residing in U.S. 

territories as compared to their disabled counterparts residing in the mainland and 

in Hawaii. As I mentioned, the Council’s staff and Council Members’ are 

exceptionally talented and can nimbly address other issues that immediately 

require our attention.

As one of the smallest independent federal agencies, by design the Council does 

not conduct its work alone. The positions we adopt and the advice we formulate is 

directly influenced and shaped by the input we receive from the diverse disability 

community directly, from a myriad of national disability advocacy and disability 

rights organizations, and through inter-agency collaboration. We are stronger 

together when we work together. The moments when NCD has had its greatest 

impact and its proud history has shined brightest have been when it has had its 

work most closely and authentically tied to the community we represent. We value 

your input. We welcome your input. We need your input. And we look forward to 

the progress that we can achieve together.

Andrés J. Gallegos, Chairman

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