NYT: The Rush to Abandon the Poor

[babylonsister]

I feel ashamed this is happening; do these people have no shame?

The Rush to Abandon the Poor
Published: July 17, 2012


The state with the country’s worst health care record just happens to have a governor who has been the loudest voice against national efforts to improve it.

A quarter of the residents of Texas, 6.3 million people, are uninsured, by far the highest percentage in the country. (That number includes more than a million children.) Texas ranks last in prenatal care and finished last on a new federal assessment of overall health quality that examined factors like disease prevention, deaths from illnesses, and cancer treatment.

Yet Gov. Rick Perry — strangely puffed up as he was so often in his presidential bid — recently told the Obama administration that he would proudly refuse a huge infusion of Medicaid money that would significantly reduce those shameful statistics and cover 1.7 million more people. The same indifference to suffering that pushed Texas to the bottom is now threatening to keep it there.

At least five other Republican governors have made a similar choice, announcing that they will not expand their Medicaid program for the poor even though the federal government would pay for almost all of it for several years under President Obama’s health care reform law.

Their refusal illuminates a growing divide over the nature of a state government’s role. Around the country, a new study shows, states continue to face a fiscal crisis because of rising costs and Republican-driven cuts in federal aid.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/opinion/the-rush-to-abandon-the-poor.html?_r=1

[ananda]

1. Can the poor fight back like the rich?

Can they buy politicians, legislators, and courts?

[BlueToTheBone]

4. No. that's why they're poor.

[kenny blankenship]

5. No, they have to fight back the way they always have

when they have managed to rise to the attention of the elites. Until they do, they will continue to be ground to dust under the heels of the rich and their two political parties.

[HereSince1628]

2. Is this the crux for r's like Perry?

"would pay for almost all of it for several years" is the problem in the "out years"?

Is it the fear that down the road the federal government will walk away from medicaid forcing state's to take on the cost?

I ask because that was the form of the argument used by Scott Walker to kill high-speed rail here in Wisconsin.

[2pooped2pop]

3. nope. they'll quietly take it right after the elections

It's just another republican party of NO -game that they are playing.

May they all rot in hell with the banksters

[liberalmuse]

6. Positively shameful.

A nation that doesn't care for the least of its citizens is corrupt and unworthy of respect or good standing in the world.

[dkf]

7. What do you all think is going to happen when Medicare and the interest on the debt keep growing?

It's all coming down on the poor, because there will be no funds for discretionary spending.

We are going to crowd out everything else including defense spending, education, and research.

[dionysus]

9. right on cue to defend the gop...

[dkf]

11. Maybe if you examined the numbers once in a while you'd see the reality.

It just makes me a little nauseated to see all this concern, while we blithely sleepwalk into our sad future reality.

[Marr]

13. lmao

[PotatoChip]

8. Good read. Thanks.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Thanks, babylonsister. K&R (and a link to my earlier related post)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002968054

[Downwinder]

12. The poor are Masters of their own fate. They control the ballot box.

They are the 99%. If and when they quit voting for Perry, hr will be gone.