Heartless Florida policies: Disabled Floridians Losing Services Under New Guidelines

[madfloridian]

This angers me more than I can tell you. This is Jeb Bush and the Bush family policies of cutting taxes and cutting services in all its glory in Florida now.

It's all about cutting taxes to the bone. It's all about believing if you are rich you deserve it, and if you are poor you deserve it. Bastards.

Disabled Floridians Losing Services Under New Guidelines

In 2007 ,the budget-strapped Legislature voted to cut benefits to people with disabilities who get Medicaid money to pay for housing, job training, therapy and transportation. In the next two months, the state agency that manages the payments will begin rolling out the cuts.

The 31,000 people statewide who now receive an uncapped amount of money each year will be grouped into four categories, each with a different limit. That means some people will get less money.

State officials say the cuts are necessary in these tough economic times. They also say, however, that capping the payments will enable the state to serve more people.

It's all about cutting taxes.

There are 17,000 people on the waiting list, with no openings for the past two years and “no incentives for someone to say, ’You know what, I don’t need speech therapy five days a week,’?” Etters said.

But organizations like PARC, which gets payments from the APD to help 700 people with disabilities, fear that the reductions will hurt existing clients.

“For the clients, this is socialization,” said Sue Buchholtz, the chief executive officer of PARC. “Without it, you take away their life.”

The other day I wrote about the fact that out of 19,000 on indigent health rolls....16,000 must be cut

The indigent-care plan, in which 19,020 Polk residents were enrolled during this fiscal year, must shrink to about 3,000 people to make up a deficit expected to be $14 million to $15 million, Assistant County Manager Lea Ann Thomas said.

..."Think about a woman with heart problems and insulin-dependent diabetes learning she can't stay on the plan even though her income is at, or close to, 100 percent of the poverty guidelines. Or a man who had heart attacks and has severe lung disease being told that the plan, which got him medication and doctor care, no longer is open to him. The man has been trying unsuccessfully for disability, said a friend who e-mailed asking where else he could go.

These are two examples of people who said they're being told they won't get the plan's assistance in 2008-09

Jeb is still in control here. House Speaker Marco Rubio is his puppet. Rubio even posts at the Florida Baptist website to prove he is doing all of this in the name of God.

Jeb said in an inaugural speech:

From Jeb's 2nd inaugural speech:

"There would be no greater tribute to our maturity as a society than if we can make these buildings around us empty of workers; silent monuments to the time when government played a larger role than it deserved or could adequately fill."

The Bush family and their minions are cold-hearted people who care nothing about anything but power and cutting taxes for their buddies...the rich.

Governor Crist, supposedly so moderate, is helpless to stop them. But now he is under McCain's control, so he won't even try.

What happens here will happen elsewhere if they get away with it.

[pinto]

1. This is happening nationwide. Fed support for Medicaid has dwindled, states

are all cutting programs one way or another. It's really a bad bind all around.

[csziggy]

3. But the idiots here in Florida passed a constitutional amendment

That was promised to cut property taxes. Unfortunately, nothing in the information available explained to the ~60% that passed it that there was no plan to replace those revenues. Most of county funds in Florida come from property taxes, so this has left counties with huge budget problems.

Jeb & his cronies are trying to get another property tax cut amendment on the ballot to cut even further. This time they propose increasing sales taxes to cover the shortfalls - but they are not explaining that those increases are for only a year. After that, again counties have to cut services.

The groups fighting the amendment have won one court battle and right now it is not slated to be on the ballot. But the forces pushing it are trying to keep it on. And they have the money, not the ones trying to fight it.

[pinto]

4. Agggh. That is an echo of our Prop 13 (CA), years ago. It decimated local services, once

the budgets got tight.

[madfloridian]

7. And our governor stands for nothing at all now.

He lets them do whatever they want, he doesn't even bother to show up and speak out now. He's in tight with McCain, so much so he even has a fiancee in case he is VP.

[Pastiche423]

2. This is incredibly bad news

AGAIN for the disabled that live in Florida. I have a number of friends living there that already have been hurting from previous cuts. And most of them are quads! They will die w/o aid.

Why don't they just shoot us?

[madfloridian]

5. They are trying to privatize Medicaid...interesting Letter to the Editor

They don't care who is hurt, they just keep on with their tax cutting and privatizing experiments.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/letters/story/625436.html

"Kudos to The Miami Herald for keeping its eye on Florida's Medicaid reform experiment, which was almost brought to Miami during the most recent legislative session. Because of the newspaper's meticulous coverage, lawmakers learned the true implications of the Broward and Duval county pilot programs.

Constituents must stay informed and hold their legislators accountable for making decisions that protect them. There is plenty of evidence that the Medicaid reform plan was designed with the bottom line, and not the consumer, in mind.

Most significant, it gives a huge amount of leniency to managed-care organizations to make decisions previously made by doctors. Evidence that the project is running smoothly and providing the same level of care at lower costs is thin, at best; Florida CHAIN -- Community Health Action Information Network -- has released a report that shows that Florida has rigged its numbers to show a more-favorable cost savings in Medicaid reform than what actually exists.

Medicaid is in desperate need of reform. But reform must be just that: something that improves the quality of care for clients and creates cost savings by improving patient health, not by inserting another level of bureaucracy.

ABIGAIL VLADECK, policy director, Human Services Coalition, Miam"

[madfloridian]

6. Duplicate

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