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Arizona’s Governor Brewer is really hitting the core of our moral fiber as human beings. Brewer is part of a national war on the poor. The Right of course is no friend of the poor and we need more fight from Neo-Dems for those in poverty.
The Dems have done in the past more on the war against poverty than the GOP ever has establishing things like food stamps, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, Section 8 housing, free school lunches, and the list goes on. The most progressive real Democratic things the HCR bill does is help many of those the census report calls impoverished by expanding Medicaid to 15 million more Americans- mostly the working poor and does boost pay for primary care Medicaid doctors, something desperately needed. The bill also, thanks to Bernie Sanders, expands our public healthcare clinics by some 10,000. That and the Medicaid expansion may be the best part of the bill. But so much more needs to be done for Americans in poverty.
In the Age of Austerity dominated by corporate greed and corruption of our political system, morality takes the back seat. The rich are getting richer as income disparity grows to 1928 levels. And we have more poor now than we have seen in at least 5 decades. So states, steered by right wing talking points as the Left remains unable to provide a singular moral voice, aka the President, are slashing away. The target: the poor. Why? Because they have no money and thus little voice at the statehouse much less Washington. Yes, there are some Democrats fighting the good fight into he war against poverty, but things are getting real bad.
Brewer decided to stop FUNDING TRANSPLANTS NEEDED BY POOR PEOPLE ON MEDICAID. People have and will die simply because they do not have the means because this governor won’t do what is right. In Texas the GOP wont raise the sales tax a cent to save programs for those in need. In Arizona they won’t fund life or death organ transplant if you don’t have the income. In South Carolina they cut off certain hospice care for Medicaid patients. In my state Texas Perry wants to opt out of Medicaid leaving 4 million Texans without insurance.
Even blue states are slashing away mainly at the poor. Look at California. But Brewer is proving to be a symbol of what is so very wrong with priorities in the Age of Austerity. We have a government full of some stone cold folks for sure. Where is the human heart here? FDR or Truman sure would speak out against Brewer’s death panel. Alas today we get silence from too many national party leaders. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of the people. of those who have no voice. Obama has uttered not one word against these heinous polices of Brewer or Perry’s push to get out of Medicaid. Nada.
So far 2 have died in Arizona who might have gotten transplants but suddenly were off the lists because Brewer cut the funding. A 32 year old guy in Arizona is trying to raise 500,000 dollars for his liver transplant or he will die. Medicaid wont fund it. What are we becoming as a nation?
PHOENIX — A second person denied transplant coverage by Arizona under a state budget cut has died, with this death “most likely” resulting from the coverage reduction, a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday.
University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman said the patient died Dec. 28 at another medical facility after earlier being removed from UMC’s list for a liver transplant needed because of hepatitis C.…
Arizona reduced Medicaid coverage for transplants on Oct. 1 under cuts included to help close a shortfall in the state budget enacted last spring.
Officials at the Tucson, Ariz., hospital said the patient’s death “most likely” resulted from Arizona’s scaling back coverage for transplants, she said.
It’s impossible to say with 100 percent certainty whether the patient would have died anyway, Gellerman said, “but we do know that his condition has gotten more severe since he was taken off the list.”
It gets worse:
…A Phoenix-area man, Mark Price, died Nov. 28 of complications from preparation for a bone-marrow transplant that was to be privately funded. That funding was provided anonymously after The Associated Press and other media outlets reported that he was notified of two possible donors on Oct. 1, the same day the coverage was reduced.
The second person’s death was reported by KOLD-TV in Tucson and the Arizona Guardian.
Democrats and other critics have slammed Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and the Republican-led Legislature for the transplant coverage reduction, and incoming Senate Minority Leader David Schapira called on them to restore the approximately $1.4 million of funding.
“Failure to restore this funding is a death sentence for people who have committed no crimes,” he said.
And Brewer?
“It’s something that probably needs to be discussed,” Brewer said. “Everybody is concerned about it, as I am. The bottom line is … that was one of those areas that we could cut and we moved forward on that.”
Brewer commented when asked by a reporter about a legislative committee chairman’s intention to review the transplant cutbacks during a future budget hearing.
Where is the outrage?
In most western countries, this would be unacceptable. Were already behind a good number of countries in good affordable healthcare, and I am afraid were going to fall even lower. My friend went to Europe and coundn’t believe how cheap the medicine was over there and how good the healthcare was, over here they are cutting the budgets starting with the poor, instead of the lawmakers paychecks or the military among other things. People are going to be scared to get old or have something because they are going to be worried about if they can put food on the table. My dad was just in the hospital for heart problems and we couldn’t believe the things going on in the hospital, for one, the floors were dirty and they never came into my dads room to clean them, there was cotton balls with blood on them and other things on the floor, they cut the towels into washcloths to save on usage of towels and washclothes. They has tape on some of the machines so they would remain intact. This is not supposed to be happening in this country but it is and I know it was not only at the hospital my dad was in. Believe me my parents get a nice big bill for it also. Taylor, Heartless is a understatement !! I am glad you brought this up Taylor !!
if u are poor in az and need a liver you are screwed. cutting this service cost 1.4 mi. az has a 1.3 bil deficit. and this they cut?if someother country had this going on in say europe oh americans would be screaming. tommorrow i have a post up on the new census reports on poverty. its grim grim. hope daley saves us!
Thanks texan4hillary for this post and bringing this issue to the forefront !! The sad part is this is proberly going to happen elsewhere in this country. Budgets are being cut and its the poor thats going to suffer like always !! But the middle-class is going to get hurt also !! Its a damm shame !!!
fmi and t4H,
Couldn’t agree with you more. This is a travesty. It makes my blood boil.
I wonder how much more of this kind of thing has to occur before enough people will see the realities of what’s happening. And not just in Arizona and Texas, of course.
People literally dying because money is more important than their lives. People without jobs, and with little hope that everyone who wants and needs a job will get one. People losing homes, and the corporations who played a knowing role in many of those losses are rewarded. And as I know the census will say about poverty, more and more people falling further down the economic ladder.
its stunning the fear to tax in this country. we need revenue pure and simple. yet i know of few pols willing to even push this. they rather slash away at education etc.. this is no way to run a nation or invest in it. mediciad should be federalized- piad for 100pct by the fed govt to avoid this sort of crap. but that wont be happening anytime soon. so mayors and guvs rather lay off employees, cut services, hike fees, cut ibrary funds etc. the smallest tax hike in many cases could really help folks out. its sick how so few will raise a tax. there is something very wrong here
Thanks for posting this t4h. Much appreciated, sickening as it is. We’re just pushing to find the limits of meanness, there is no reason for this, but then again, the Right is driven by something other than reason.
FMI, this post was written by t4h. …and thanks so much for it. Your posts in the evenings this week have been terrific!
Gov. Brewer is the very definition of an immoral politician.
Excellent post t4h! Hi Taylor and everybody…. What I would like to know is there a direct correlation between those states who had to “Slash their budgets” in order to give out tax cuts/rebates or those states that refuse to raise taxes? Out of all things they cut, they cut the transplant program? The outrage is missing because a mass of people are not impacted. I really would like to know what else was on the chopping block be fore Gov. Brewer….the financial and consitutional braintrust that she is….before they arrived at…geee…let’s cut the “TRANSPLANT” program…..
the political parties have lost their moral core.
An open letter to Jan Brewer.
You would have fit in just fine at Auschwitz. You used your power to select those who would live and who would die.
Who’s the Nazi now you conservative twits?
Who used their power to disenfranchise the less fortunate?
Where Republicans tread, innocent people end up dead!!!
When you go to purgatory many years from now Ms. Brewer may you stay there to the crack of doom and hear the cries of death that you madam of death will have to hear.
D. Baer
gee! if i’d have known i could get a free liver when ever i needed one, i wouldn’t have quit drinking.
Different states have always provided different levels of coverage under Medicaid.
People in need of transplants flee Florida and try to establish residency in Pennsylvania, for example.
Until they do they are SOL.
Sometimes they die because they waited too long to come here.
This is NOT NEW.
It is a disgrace that people don’t understand the very real and often fatal limits of health care services the US states make available through Medicaid.
It’s a damn good reason for people to be very careful what states they move to.
As for retirees, Medicare has holes you could fly a C5A through, and for a lot of people the only plug for those holes is Medicaid.
But not in just any state, friends.
Not at all.
Take care before you decide to spend your old and sickly years in some sunshiny state where the stupid bastards above 65 keep electing Republicans.