Governors Unite in Medicaid Fight

Fearful that President Bush plans to shift more Medicaid costs to the states, the nation's governors are mounting a bipartisan lobbying effort to stave off new federal limits on the program. Medicaid, the nation's largest health insurance program, is costing the states and the federal government more than $300 billion a year. The growth of the program, which covers the poor and disabled, has outpaced state revenues, and Medicaid is now a larger component of total state spending than elementary and secondary education combined, according to the National Governors Association.

Showing rare bipartisan unity, governors of both parties said in interviews this week that they would press hard in the coming months to preserve or even increase their current Medicaid allotments.

"I certainly understand the need to balance the federal budget," said Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican and the vice chairman of the governors association. "But people need to remember that to balance the federal budget off the backs of the poorest people in the country is simply unacceptable. You don't pull feeding tubes from people. You don't pull the wheelchair out from under the child with muscular dystrophy."

The association's chairman, Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat, said the governors were "much more in unanimity on this issue than they are on most issues." He added, "We do see on a regular basis that unless the governors step up, you will see cost-shifting done because it relieves the federal problem."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/national/26medicaid.html?ex=1104642000&en=40820667ca1a8f26&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1

and this is why I keep teliing bushbots how utterly unchristian they are.

It's the one slap that makes them stop in their tracks. Shoot, some day it might even awaken their vestigial reptilian brains enough to generate a coherent thought.

I have a friend on complete disability and Medicaid. I told her her benefits would be cut if Bush were elected, but she had to vote for him because he was "pro-Life". I wonder what sort of life she'll lead without health care.

Bush, if you get cancer on Medicaid, you die. Chemo is to expensive, so they dope you up and let you die. Pro-life, hardly.

Maybe this is yet another wedge issue that can divide local repukes from Bush. If Medicaid is cut, we need to insist that news outlets let folks see the government "pull(ing) feeding tubes from people (or) pull(ing) the wheelchair out from under the child with muscular dystrophy." We need to ask just how cutting Medicaid shows "compassion" that Shrub said today we needed to show.