I don’t agree that no one pushes wheelchairs on people who don’t need them (based on my personal experience)
may I ask what you mean by personal experience? are you a wheelchair user who’s gone through the gatekeeping system to be prescribed one? if not, i think you have a highly idealized view of what that system looks like and how ableism is truly a global problem in medicine. i wasn’t even talking from an American perspective.
you may live in a country with socialized medicine but I’m not aware of any system whose universal healthcare also applies to disabled people. even if the cost barrier was eliminated, all the other barriers to access like legal status, ableism and racism wouldn’t go anywhere unless nation states and hierarchies ceased to be a thing.
may I ask what you mean by personal experience? are you a wheelchair user who’s gone through the gatekeeping system to be prescribed one? if not, i think you have a highly idealized view of what that system looks like and how ableism is truly a global problem in medicine. i wasn’t even talking from an American perspective.
you may live in a country with socialized medicine but I’m not aware of any system whose universal healthcare also applies to disabled people. even if the cost barrier was eliminated, all the other barriers to access like legal status, ableism and racism wouldn’t go anywhere unless nation states and hierarchies ceased to be a thing.