Friday, January 28, 2005
 
Gall as Big as Church Bells

I haven't awarded the award in a while, but I will present it deservedly so to Missouri Governor Matt Blunt who is seeking to actually cut a government benefits program:
    His [Governor Blunt's] proposed budget would cut 14,607 low-income elderly and disabled people who signed up under the latest program expansion. They are among 89,046 adults who would lose their coverage under Medicaid, the joint state-federal health care program for the poor.

    Blunt said Medicaid's price tag has doubled in six years, making the program unaffordable for taxpayers. Even with his proposed cuts, it will cost $5.3 billion, or more than one-fourth of the total state budget.

    In addition to curtailing eligibility, the governor would ax some services. For example, the state would no longer pay for physical therapy, occupational therapy, ambulances and hospice services. Also gone would be money for dental care, hearing aids, prostheses and wheelchairs.

    Children, pregnant women and the visually impaired would be exempted from the cuts.

    Social service advocates were dismayed at the scope of the proposed reductions.
Needless to say, some free-spending politicians are up in arms over the proposal:
    When legislators expanded taxpayer-paid health care for the elderly and disabled three years ago, then-Sen. Sarah Steelman was jubilant.

    "In my district, going door to door, I'd come across widows who clearly needed assistance," recalls Steelman, a Republican from Rolla who is now state treasurer.
Let's rewrite that: a politician from Rolla who's job-hopping up the political ladder and whose goals are electability, not what's good for the state.

The more treasure to spend, the more powerful the treasurer, I guess.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:38 AM
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