A cruel gesture (Florida - Jeb Bush)

[teach1st]

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/01/08/Opinion/A_cruel_gesture.shtml

St. Petersburg Times, 1/8/04

A group of lawmakers is being asked today to make the cruelest of gestures toward Florida's poor and infirm. With the state already $113-million short in its programs to serve poor people who need doctors, hospitals and nursing homes, these lawmakers are being asked to shift nearly four times that amount into a reserve account. They are being asked, in the middle of a thunderstorm, to put money away for an umbrella

In this case, though, the poor get soaked.

Gov. Jeb Bush is the one who is urging this misallocation of resources, and his agency director assures lawmakers that "services to recipients will not be impacted by this change." Whom are they kidding? The state already has 63,000 poor children and 12,600 disabled adults on waiting lists to see doctors and therapists. It is also contemplating reductions in the meager compensation it provides to nursing homes, hospitals and group homes for taking care of poor people, even as new state laws require nursing homes to hire more staff to maintain quality.

Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein was direct in his assessment: "It's morally wrong. . . . These are real expenses right now that affect people's lives right now."