The insurance companies see this legislation as a tax. My question is: Why is that unreasonable, particularly when the insurance companies would save so much money in the long run? Research will keep the American people healthier, resulting in fewer insurance claims. We tax oil companies and use the money to build and maintain highways. In New York State, if you win the lottery you pay a significant tax, which goes to a state fund for education. Most states have sales taxes, which are a major source of revenue for a wide variety of programs and services that benefit the public. Why shouldn’t insurance companies be asked to help solve the health care crisis in this country?
Because of the advances to date, we can save millions of lives. Our challenge for the future is not just improving the quality of life of those we save but finding the cures to prevent that suffering in the first place.
Our scientists are on the threshold of major breakthroughs in almost every disease or condition that now causes so much hardship for people across the country and around the world. The insurance companies owe it to our families and our society to make a small sacrifice, which can do so much good. I hope that this excellent piece of legislation, which already has tremendous grass-roots support, will be enacted during this legislative session.
Thank you very much.
SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION ON DISABILITY CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP AWARD LUNCHEON
October 8, 1997
Thank you very, very much for that introduction. Again, I want to thank JCPenney and their ad agency for giving me my first job all those years ago. It was kind of a shock. I had never been on camera before. I had been a theater actor, and I got pinned into my dress shirt. They tuck it in at the back so there are no wrinkles. I got out on the floor, and the first thing I heard over the loudspeaker from the director was, “Makeup, can you do something with his face? It’s so bland.” It took me a while, but I bounced back from that little setback.
One thing I want to communicate to you is that I’ve now spent three birthdays in a wheelchair. At forty-two, I thought the best in life was still ahead of me, and I gave interviews saying that I felt wonderful opportunities were coming my way, both on-screen and off—in my personal life. Everything seemed to be rosier than ever before. One of the last movies I did before I was injured was called Above Suspicion, in which I played a paraplegic. I went to a rehab center in Van Nuys, California, to do research on what it would be like to be a paraplegic. I learned how to transfer in and out of a car. I learned how to transfer in and out of bed and onto a rehab mat. And I spent time with a young woman who had been injured in the earthquake in California. A bookcase had fallen on her head, and she was in a halo. She was just learning how to walk. I remember I went about every other day for two weeks to do this research. Every time I would leave and get in my car and drive back to my comfortable hotel, I would thank God that that was not me. Eight months later I had the accident and joined the disability population.
All of you here in this room are leaders—in the corporate world, leaders of foundations, leaders who have tremendous influence in government. The message today is, Just because our company has succeeded, just because our people are doing well, that is no excuse to look the other way and to turn members of our family into strangers. There should never be a sense of being a stranger. We all must be included in the American family.
Those who have the most should give the most, on both the government level and the private level. If we would do that, if we would really work together, if, for example, an insurance company would give one penny of every health premium dollar, that would raise $24 billion for research. It would transform the landscape of the whole health front in America. One penny. You don’t need to pass that on to the consumer. There’s no insurance company in this country that can’t afford one penny of every dollar to help disabled members of the American family. Yet, when this is brought up, they say, “You’re mandating a tax. That’s unfair.” I regard that as selfish and un-American. We must do what is necessary, and you can help. We must change that kind of thinking so that all the corporate leaders of these major companies will have the kind of compassion that Mr. Oesterreicher and his company have already demonstrated.
So, on behalf of the forty-nine million Americans with disabilities and the half billion around the world, we salute the leadership of companies like JCPenney. Thank you for what you have done. Spread the word. Think of the world as an inclusive family, and let’s not leave anyone behind.
The point I’m making is how easy it is to look away. I think that we are all one big family, but in many ways we’re a dysfunctional family because we still sometimes see ourselves as separate. We think deep in our hearts, “Thank God that’s not me.” But it is all of us. At any moment some disease or condition of the central nervous system can happen, from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s to MS to the spinal cord. These all are afflictions that will affect us as America grows older. If we can just begin to see that there is no separation between the nondisabled and the disabled, then we will make real progress.
Today we are here to salute those people in the corporate world who realize that they have the leadership potential to promote real inclusion—JCPenney, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns—these are major titans of the corporate world, who can set the example and communicate the message that we are all one inclusive family. Whatever happens to me could happen to my brother, or my sister, or my mother, or my grandmother. Once we’ve realized that connection, then it’s easier to say, “It’s not acceptable for someone to be excluded. It’s not acceptable for my brother, who may be a person I’ve never met before, to not get a job. To not be a part of society. It’s absolutely unacceptable.” The motivation to include, the motivation to say, “You, too, can be a part of the real world, not sidelined into a back corner where we merely maintain you and feel sorry for you,” this is the key to a society that can lay claim to being just and being fair.
This sense of equality is what we’re really here to celebrate today. You, Mr. Oesterreicher [chairman and CEO], and everyone at JCPenney are leading the way. They need to be followed. The CEOs of insurance companies need to look at what they do and say, “Why do we deny a young man a shower chair so he can be kept clean? Why do we deny exercise equipment that would allow somebody in my condition to keep himself from atrophy?” Research is leading the way to the day when there will be a significant recovery of function. How can the profit motive overtake the need for compassion? Well, certainly companies like JCPenney put compassion first. Their example must be followed.
PHOTO CREDITS
Page numbers refer to the printed edition of this book.
Page 10, top: Tobé Saskor
Page 10, bottom: Ginny Gable
Page 11: Susan Thompson
Page 12, bottom: Chaco Mohler Photography
Page 13, bottom two (sailing and scuba): Michael Stutz
Pages 28,41, 45: Andrew Woods
Page 83: Eugene Pierce
Page 86, top: Helen Morosini
Page 88, top: Jay Thompson
Page 88, bottom: Don Dubin
Pages 92–93: Onne van der Wal
Page 95: Eric Borg
Page 146: Bradford F. Herzog
Page 152: George Hamlin
Page 156: Cornell University Photo
Page 161, left: Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1972, courtesy of Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, CA
Page 161, right: Richard III, 1972, courtesy of Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, CA
Page 170: Benjamin Reeve
Page 171: Stanley Wilson
Page 178: Robin Platzer
Pages 180, 184: from the Billy Rose Theater collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
Page 183: Anna Karenina, still photo © 1984 CPT Holdings, courtesy Columbia TriStar Television
Pages 188, 211: Circle Repertory Co., Ken Howard, photographer
Page 196, top: Ilya Salkind, personal archieves
Pa
ge 200: Alpha
Page 205: Courtesy of Universal Publishing Rights, Inc., a division of Universal Studios, Inc. All rights reserved.
Page 209: Joseph P. Schuyler
Pages 215, 234: Courtesy Merchant Ivory Productions
Page 218, bottom: The Aviator, courtesy of MGM Consumer Products
Page 222: Zoë Dominic, London
Page 224: Attila Dory
Page 226, bottom: Gac Exton
Page 236: Courtesy of Flying magazine
Page 261: Armando M. Passarelli
All other photos courtesy of Christopher Reeve.
Still Me Page 31
