Bush planning drastic cuts in Medicaid starting in 2006

[scottxyz]

After creating record federal budget deficits by giving tax cuts to the wealthy and financing the war in Iraq, the Bush administration’s budget proposal in February is widely expected to try to shrink deficits largely by slashing programs for the poor and the elderly, particularly Medicaid. Capitol Hill is expecting the administration’s fiscal 2006 budget to include drastic cuts in federal Medicaid spending...

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9135

[stray cat]

1. Bush created the deficit to eliminate progressive benefits to Americans.

Krugman accused him of starving the beast for this purpose from day one.

It sounds like Bush is also trying to give his Homeland Secretary unlimited power to break or maybe repeal any American law. Could this potentially even effect our elections in a time perceived as war? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3061368

[Ilsa]

2. How can he* possibly justify this as Christian or Godly?

Why aren't the religious leaders screaming bloody murder over this?

[wildmanj]

12. why

most religious leaders are scam artist fleecing the flock

[chicagojoe]

3. Something like this will

be the straw that severs Bushs' spine.

[Clark2008]

10. I sure hope so

There are more of "us" than there are of "them," so to speak.
Meaning, of course, there are more people who need the benefits of Medicaid and Social Security than are independently wealthy enough to afford to A.) provide their famlies with healthcare and B.) retire with a trust fund.

I hope the coupling of those two issues will finally force the sheeple to wake up, stand up and take their lives back into their own hands. Now, THAT'S ownership!

[acmavm]

4. bush* just may be biting off more that he can chew. I certainly hope so.

Because even his freaky fundie fruitcake followers have parents and grandparents. And there is a large section of them who are not members of 'tax cut' elite. I have this feeling that simply because pResident Unelected's frauds and lies have personally affected a large segment of his following, they can sit back and pretend that he's the man with the mandate that he tells them he is. But when they start to hurt, or their parents have to come live with their sorry asses, then they'll start to wake up because the sacrifice and pain has finally started to affect them personally. See, the problem with these folks is, and always has been, as long as someone else has to pay, has to die, has to fight, then whatever the pResident says and does is just fine with them, he's such a man of God and all. But when they start to feel the pinch, you watch. It'll be a whole other story.

[stray cat]

5. We need to link demolishing S.S. to demolishing Medicaid.

Before Bush starts calling it fixing medicaid.

[Sgent]

6. Medicaid is a weird program

Those same fundies will claim that all the people on Medicaid are freeloaders. If they are elderly, they might agree to maintain it, but they believe everyone under the age of 65 on Medicaid is a worthless POS -- see welfare reform.

[stray cat]

7. Is it medicare that helps children below an income threshold?

[charlyvi]

11. No.

Medicare is the insurance provided to those who are 65 or older, or those who have been receiving Social Security disability benefits for 24 months, or end stage renal patients. Medicaid is the program for children.

[EVDebs]

8. All part of 'globalization' process. Corporations strip Western

workers of benefits such as pension plans and healthcare in order to hammer down wages in the first world in order to 'compete' with themselves in the 'second and third world' cheap labor markets. This sleight of hand results, eventually, in a supply-side disaster since no one is left with an income large enough to buy what is being produced. Henry Ford realized this when he began paying his workers a living wage.

With all the new immigrants, who cannot be deported and reasonably shouldn't be since the economy depends upon them now, either immediate citizenship or phased-in with a fee, should be considered. Those workers, and native-born workers who have been displaced by them, could then demand Living Wage laws simultaneously with the Citizenship legislation. Lawsuits or fines could then be levied against globalizing corporations to remedy the effects of the social problems they have fobbed off onto the government.

Corporations and the wealthiest CEOs could then pay into the system what is owed to labor. Decent retirement and healthcare then have a chance at being funded adequately.

[madrchsod]

9. so the wealthy middle class

now get to pay for their parents health care or watch them die a slow horrible death. what a future bush envisions for america....

[Sgent]

13. Medicaid covers

Children Below poverty level
Pregnant women
People in long term care (nursing homes)

Medicaid *might* cover, but it is entirely optional:
Perscription drugs
adults below poverty level who aren't confined to a nursing home
Disabled persons below poverty
Disabled persons waiting for Medicare coverage to kick in


In addition, many of the things we take forgranted in most Medicaid programs are purley optional for anyone other than children.