Blunt’s Medicaid director to keep post under Nixon
Ian McCaslin has managed to build a bipartisan following in the state capital while holding one of the state’s toughest jobs.
Hired by former Gov. Matt Blunt to run the state’s Medicaid program, McCaslin has been retained by Gov. Jay Nixon’s administration.
McCaslin came to Missouri in 2007 from Harvard Medical School, where he was a faculty member and pediatric emergency physician at Children’s Hospital in Boston.
As reported here in December, some Democratic leaders and social welfare groups had lobbied Nixon to keep the well-spoken doctor.
Ronald Levy, Nixon’s new social services director, told a Senate committee today that he had invited McCaslin to stay on.
“It was the first decision I made,” Levy said. “He is highly respected, highly regarded.”
Let’s see… to balance the state budget, Matt Blunt made some tough choices, among those were to cut some Medicaid services/eligibility… and was savaged for it for 3 years by The Post, and Democrats in general and Nixon particularly.
And now Nixon keeps Blunts Medicaid director.
Irony and hypocrisy… what more can one ask of both the Democrats and The Post
The travesty was in who got booted off the program, not who was chosen to run it after the Blunt trauma. McCaslin came in 2007 (see story above). Long after the damage was done.
tsquare - surely you were not looking for something different from the PD.
100,000 people lost access to affordable healthcare and services, and people died because of the Blunt/GOP cruel cuts in Medicaid. Blunt and his merry band of crooksters said we would have a deficit if we didn’t cut Medicaid.
Then, Blunt and his GOP lackeys gave the store away in tax cuts for the rich, corporations and developers which now have created a $350 million budget shortfall.
Yappers, stop the lies and own up to your sins! Repent before its too late and you burn!
ok, square head…r-e-a-d v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y…
(1) ‘…Matt Blunt made some tough choices, among those were to cut some Medicaid services/eligibility…And now Nixon keeps Blunts Medicaid director…’
— tsquare
11:20 pm January 28th, 2009
(2)’…McCaslin came to Missouri in 2007 from Harvard Medical School, where he was a faculty member and pediatric emergency physician at Children’s Hospital in Boston…’
(see above story)
now please tell me, oh ‘head of square’…
how Mr. McCaslin could have been part of baby blunt’s butcher team on poor people in 2004-5 when he didn’t get here untill 2007?
c’mon…t-h-i-n-k…s-l-o-w-l-y…
“Butcher team?” “People died”??
Who are you kidding, here??
Those removed from the program were removed because they failed to meet eligibility requirements. People are denied access due to eligibility every day, but I don’t hear you screaming about them being denied access to health care.
The fact is this — nobody is denied access to health care, just like nobody is denied access to decent housing or a car. Affordability for what you want is perhaps something different.
Being self-employed for many years, I have gone many occasions without health INSURANCE, but that does NOT mean I didn’t have health CARE. I just had to pay for it out of pocket. Had I not been able to afford it, there are SEVERAL agencies that would have helped, other than Medicaid.
What a concept!