Herbert: Punishing the Poor (Haley Barbour's Mississippi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/opinion/11HERB.html?pagewanted=print&position=

If you want to see "compassionate" conservatism in action, take a look at Mississippi, a state that is solidly in the red category (strong for Bush) and committed to its long tradition of keeping the poor and the unfortunate in as ragged and miserable a condition as possible.

How's this for compassion? Mississippi has approved the deepest cut in Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens and the disabled that has ever been approved anywhere in the U.S.

The new policy will end Medicaid eligibility for some 65,000 low-income senior citizens and people with severe disabilities — people like Traci Alsup, a 36-year-old mother of three who was left a quadriplegic after a car accident.

The cut in eligibility for seniors and the disabled was the most dramatic component of a stunning rollback of services in Mississippi's Medicaid program. The rollback was initiated by the Republican-controlled State Senate and Mississippi's new governor, Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the national Republican Party. When he signed the new law on May 26, Mr. Barbour complained about taxpayers having to "pay for free health care for people who can work and take care of themselves and just choose not to."

Every word of this sickening article is true. My fellow citizens "bought the bullshit" and now they will pay the price.

I'm just glad that my mother, who DEPENDED on Medicaid prescription coverage for life-saving drugs, is dead. She would probably be excluded under Gov Barbour.

Can you imagine how horrifying is is to say that you're glad your mother is dead? But better dead, than suffering because she's been cut off from life-saving medications like so many people in my state have been.

To quote George McGovern "it hurts too much to laugh, and I'm too old to cry".

My sympathy here is quite limited. They could have re-elected Musgrove, and now they are going to learn their lesson. Perhaps they will not make that mistake again in 2007.

at its zenith!

...perhaps to the point of becoming completely debilitated by these cuts.

Though they didn't vote for Barbour, I suppose this will teach them, huh?

:eyes:

After that, it's a "nasty, short and brutish" life.