Obama Care: Let the Poor Die in the Streets

The Obama administration gave California the green light to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from Medi-Cal, the Los Angeles Times reported this week. The plan calls for cuts of 10% to providers, including physicians, dentists, clinics, pharmacies and most nursing homes. The new plan would give doctors only $11 per office visit. As a result, fewer doctors will be willing to treat the 7.6 million poor and disabled Californians served by the Medi-Cal program.

A spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told the Times that the decision gives California the flexibility necessary to address its budget shortfall. The cuts are expected to bring in an extra $623 million, out of a total $14 billion annual Medi-Cal budget.

Of course increasing taxes on the state’s 600,000 millionaires is out of the question even though a 1% tax on millionaires would bring in $6 billion per year or ten times what the cuts would save (a conservative estimate based on the assumption that all millionaires earn exactly $1 million per year).

California also wants to implement co-pays for Medi-Cal recipients and limit the number of times patients can see a doctor. Poor patients would have to cough up $5 for each doctor's visits, $50 for emergency room visits and $100 a day for hospital stays. Most would be limited to seven doctor’s visits per year. The latter limitation seems almost punitive, as the increased costs to users alone would likely limit their use of the program. More significantly, the increased cost for hospital visits will likely result in some patients foregoing emergency services for potentially life threatening conditions in hopes they can save a few bucks and ride it out at home. As a result, the number of preventable deaths in California will probably grow.

California already spends less on Medicare than any other state. It has been setting the national standard for how far states can go to gut the program and jettison their poor and indigent residents. By allowing California to further slash Medi-Cal, the federal government has set a precedent for other states to follow. With the unemployment showing no signs of abating and existing jobs continuing a downward spiral of low wages and lousy or nonexistent benefits, the number of Americans dependent of programs like Medicare will only grow.

Hey Liberals, Democrats Are Evil, Too

The left press and blogosphere have been ranting about the crazy, evil, greedy and/or stupid Republicans and mostly overlooking the fact that Democratic lawmakers, too, have launched a scorched earth policy against children, teachers, unions, and working people in general.

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Consider these examples reported today on the WSWS:

The Democrat-controlled Colorado senate, by a 30-5 margin, approved budget cuts of $250 million from K-12 education, which will result in massive teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, and a shortened school year. The budget also guts higher education and Medicaid, while canceling a $3 million nutrition program for poor children. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper initially called for $375 million in cuts to K-12 education, but agreed to reduced education cuts in exchange for bigger tax cuts for the rich and corporations. Keep in mind, Colorado’s six billionaires with a combined wealth of $20.3 billion, more than 20 times Colorado’s entire $988 million deficit, have no need for a tax break.

Washington State, with a Democrat governor and Democrat-controlled senate and house, approved a budget that slashes $2 billion from public education, cuts pay for state workers and teachers by 3%, and strips funding from “underperforming” schools. Their budget saves an additional $1.2 billion by refusing to fund a voter-approved program to increase teacher pay and decrease class sizes. Washington is also planning to cut $530 million from higher education, which would cause tuition to increase by 16% at universities and 12% at community colleges. The budget also imposes furloughs and cuts funding for Medicaid. Washington’s six billionaires have a combined net worth of nearly $100 billion, which is 25 times the state’s budget deficit.

Or consider these examples:

California has a Democrat governor and Democrat-controlled state house and senate. Yet they are proposing to close their $25 billion budget gap by slashing $1.4 billion from higher education and $4 billion from k-12 education, according to the CTA. Additionally, Reuters and CNN report that the proposed budget would cut wages by 10% for many unionized state employees, while slashing Medi-Cal by $1.7 billion, Welfare-to-Work by $1.5 billion, and $705 million from the agency serving people with developmental disabilities. Yet, if just the richest 19 residents paid 10% more in taxes, the state’s $25 billion deficit would be completely erased.  California has 80 billionaires, or 20% of Forbes’ richest Americans.

In New York, Democratic Governor Cuomo has proposed a budget plan calling for nearly 9,800 layoffs. The plan also calls for massive cuts to K-12 education (7.3%) and health care, in addition to 10% cuts to colleges and universities, reported NBC news. Additionally, CNN said that state agencies will have their budgets slashed by 20%. New York City, alone, has 58 billionaires who, together have so much wealth they could erase the State’s budget deficit without even noticing a change in their bank accounts.

In Maryland, Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, who ran a pro-education and pro-labor campaign, and the Democrat-controlled state legislature, are now considering cuts to education and the state work force, according to the Baltimore Sun. Under the plan, current employees would have to increase their pension contributions by 25%, (7% of their pay), or they could opt to continue contributing about 5.6% of their pay, but would risk decreased benefits. WaPo reports that new employees would have no choice and their early retirement age would be raised from 55 to 60. Daily Censored says that $94 million will be cut from k-12 education, with $15 of it coming entirely from Baltimore City Schools.

Connecticut’s Democratic Governor, Dan Malloy, has pitted unions against the cities, basing his budget almost entirely on union concessions worth $1 billion over the next two years, according to CBS news. If the unions refuse to accept the cuts, he has threatened to slash state funding for cities. Hearst Connecticut Newspapers says that the losses to cities could be as much as $67 million for Bridgeport, $10.4 million from Danbury, $4.9 million Stamford, $1.8 million from Greenwich, and $5 million from Norwalk.