Why such silence on state’s refusal to expand Medicaid?
By refusing to expand Medicaid coverage to an approximate 35,000 low income Missourians, “pro-life” Republicans in the Missouri Legislature have continued their campaign against the poor, the disenfranchised and the most vulnerable among our citizenry. They have adamantly, and in some cases with vitriol and mean spirited rhetoric, defended their position that stimulus money not be used for this purpose.
Almost weekly in many Catholic churches, we hear outrage from the pulpit on abortion and stem cell research; the Archdiocese sponsors post card campaigns on these issues; there are weekly references in church bulletins encouraging participation in protests in St. Louis or at the state capitol and letter writing and phone campaigns to legislators. Where is the outrage in the churches about this egregious campaign to deny basic health services to the most vulnerable among us? Health care is a human right not a privilege. What makes this doubly despicable is that the money is available, but the Republican controlled legislature refuses to appropriate it.
If we are truly pro-life life we must support and defend human life after birth and not only for fetuses in the womb or cells in a Petri dish. To do otherwise is simply anti-abortion. To a Christian, providing health care coverage to all citizens should be a matter of social justice. Silence on this issue is not acceptable.
Rosalie M. Laune
New Haven
amazed: Medicare is busted. The same people that allowed it to be busted, whether as a result of not funding fraud detection or wasteful spending, are the same folks you would like controlling healthcare for ALL of us.
Medicare is being sabotaged by the health care industry, which is scared to death of a successful public health insurance option. They KNOW they can’t compete. If we could stop the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry from pumping our representatives with big bucks and thus controlling our Congress… Medicare could be properly funded and fraud could be stopped.
However, I’m not aware of “wasteful spending” in Medicare… would you like to be more specific? Although, I DO have an example of wasteful spending in the private sector… William W. McGuire, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, received an annual salary of $124.8 million in 2005. I wonder how many claims were denied and policies canceled, in order to pay him that much money… Murder. By. Spreadsheet.
superdave,
Still waiting. In the event of a serious illness or accident, would you REALLY let your daughter or your wife die before you would use Medicaid or SCHIP? Yes or No. Even “amazed” gave me an answer… although I wasn’t asking him and I can’t figure out if he said yes or no. I already knew if his kid had a brain tumor he would do the operation himself with a chainsaw and a blowtorch.
Lisa, I wouldn’t use government healthcare because these people need it more…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FREQUENT_ER_PATIENTS?SITE=MOPAR&SECTION=TOP_STORIES&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
If you don’t see this as a sign of wastefulness and incompetence, you are beyond help. But we already knew that.
“One thing he found shocking was how agreeable Medicare was in paying his phony claims, even after patients whose names were used without permission filed complaints. “Why is Medicare paying” he asked. “Medicare keeps on paying, so who’s at fault? I think the government is at fault, the government doesn’t have any control of this.”
The man said stealing from Medicare can be a very lucrative endeavor. “If in a year you want $6 million or $8 million you can do it.”
— Amazedbythelunacy
“Lisa, I wouldn’t use government healthcare because these people need it more…”
.
You live in Austin?
lisa, if medicare fraud costs an estimated 60 bill a year covering only 45 million a year, wouldn’t it be fair to say that the number would multiply 6-fold when you cover the entire 300 million people in this nation?
I’m looking forward to government wasting 360 billion a year. Woohoo!!
Add that to Social Security fraud and we’ll be broke as a nation much quicker.
Sweet!!!!!