Heartless

We sit in a marble tower, two blocks separate us from the offices of the Department of Health and Welfare. This morning we passed from JFAC $100 million in cuts to medical services for people with disabilities, for children and for adults with medical conditions and not enough income to afford care.

If Representative Fred Wood had had his way we would have only talked about the numbers. What passed was not a plan, not a working budget but a huge cut with instructions to the Governor and Department of Health & Welfare: "Hope you can make this work."

Unlike with education budgets yesterday, none of the affected parties were brought in. No stakeholder meetings were held with the disability community, with people with chronic illnesses or with the hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses to see if this would work out. No, we have handed down a fly by the seat of your pants budget full of intent language acknowledging that it may fall apart by January. And if it does it seems that's ok because January is after the elections.

Fred Wood, maker of the motion, leader of the heartless, had the lack of sensitivity to mention going home as he wove his committee debate this morning there under the grand columns and the domed, cream colored ceiling. This is about going home. Passing this fly by the seat of our pants budget is about going home, not about us as law makers governing or leading or taking seriously our duty to do more than just make the numbers pan out.

Now we will watch the waiting lists grow and we know already that slowly the process is bogging down. Already the Department of Health & Welfare (whose employees are often some of the lowest paid in the state) already they close down half a day every other Friday without pay. Now they will close a whole days, close whole field offices so people if they have a car must drive and wait and perhaps still not get served, still not make it to the front of the line for help for a child, for food or something to get them through now that unemployment has run out.

Representative Wood, the scowling man with the mustache and thick glasses glaring over his microphone said we HAD to cut this budget as we did. He knows as well as I do that a single change in the grocery tax credit would fix this... He knows well that we could vote for one year not to give $40 grocery tax credits to Idahoans earning more than $20,000 a year ($40,000 for married couples.) The whole committee knows that this one simple $35 million change could prevent us from losing $120 million in federal funds and could have completely prevented us from making all these cuts in the Health Assistance budget this year.

This is where my heart sinks... knowing that posturing and protecting ourselves for our own legislative re-election comes before our responsibilities to the state and its people, particularly the most vulnerable. That is where my heart dies in this place, watching that over and over and over.

Comments

[Eugene Boyle]

Senator LeFavour: My wife works for Medicaid and I will be forwarding this post to her. She and the people she works with take their jobs very personally and can't help but tkae their client's situation to heart. The current 'cuts' are like saying to them (and us) "..you know how we said that to save money we were gonna skip lunch on Fridays? Well now we're gonna skip eating altogether on Fridays."

Idaho Health and Welfare is already sorely understaffed and are some of the lowest paid state employees in the nation. It is difficult to drive to our north end home (which is in foreclosure) and not feel resentment about our newly remodeled capitol building when we hear news such as this.

That being said, I am hopeful when I see that a precious few folks like yourself (maybe you are the only one?) have the decency and integrity to make a statement like the one I read above.

Hope won't help us keep the home we have lived in for 17 years... but it feels better than utter despair. So for that - thank you.

[carol]

I love you. Hug.

[Amy Y]

Thank you for speaking the truth and giving a voice not only to those that may be considered 'vulnerable' also to those that work tirelessly behind those desks, processing paperwork and determining benefits. Not only are H&W staff often the lowest paid, they are also highly monitored and their work is constantly reviewed for accuracy and timeliness. Something we should perhaps institute for others drawing State salaries. I know, I know - that's what elections are for.

[MountainGoat]

Last session when I was listening to Zeb Bell on KBAR every morning, Rep. Scott Bedke was on one day talking about using the budget crisis as an opportunity to wean people off "entitlement programs" (in fact, wouldn't be surprised if that isn't where the Gov. got the language he used for phasing out the 7 state agencies), as if people using Medicaid, Food Stamps or other government safety-net programs were doing so simply because they lacked the will to provide these things for themselves.

The callousness and inhumanity is appalling. God forbid they, or anyone they love, should ever fall on hard times.

[Brenda]

OH MY GOD. And I will use the word GOD because at this point that is about all we have left to hope will take over and keep our special people out of harms way. Harms way meaning from the legislators. HOW DARE those who sleep well at night, have substantial health care, have a salary that could be sized down to help this situation,speak of cutting the ones who need help the most. My daughter is 25 and lives at home. She has Cerebral Pasly. My husband who was a school teacher here and in California always had health care for our family and we never ONCE lived off an entitlement of anything. My husband and my family all worked many, many decades and paid taxes to help those who could not help themselves. So when my daughter turned 18 and needed help because she is disabled from Cerebral Palsy, I expect it to be there. I have paid my taxes, I have always been on the right side of life and the law. I have even saved the state money by not having her in an institution which would be even millions more dollars than living at home. My husband had a heart attack in December and thank GOD he has Medicare, which he paid into to have all his working life. If anyone or anyhthing hurts me and my family because of these cuts, when they had a simple way of fixing the problem, I will sue the daylights out of them. My daughter has Medicaid and Medicare and my husband has Medicare. I am the one taking care of both of them, I have lupus and I have NO INSURANCE. Just think....without me in the picture, someone has to take care of them. Think of how much money that will cost. Or is it that you want to put them into institutions so that they get the enormous government money to house them. I know I dont get that money. I get a mere 53 dollars a day (EVERY DAY...365 days a year), for taking care of my daughter that I and my entire family paid taxes to give her medical care. Tell me...when is the madness going to stop?? When, can we as a family, feel less scared of losing one another? SHAME ON GOVERNMENT...SHAME ON ALL OF YOU WHO PENCIL OR PEN PUSH. May GOD have pitty on you.

[Bebe Thompson mother of Austin]

Nicole,

I admire you for the outspokenness and heart that you have. I am one of the DHW employees and also one of those parents who will experience cuts in services for my disabled nine-year old son. Tomorrow is my first full day off without pay and I have already seen the impact of prior furlough hours on my paycheck since the last July. I have already lost my home I lived in for 15 years because of the greedieness of others and I cannot tell you how devalued as a person I feel by this body of arrogant, insensitive, and selfish people, excluding yourself and other like-minded individuals. Many of these people in desparate need of help, were once very self sustaining families, individuals, and even communities and through no fault of their own are in need of help for food and other assistance to stay off the streets. I cannot help but recall Senator Keogh's comments a week or so back, that no one would welcome a tax hike but be sure to give to your local homeless shelter or food bank.. I am appalled at these people.

[David Wilkins]

I heard some of this exchange on NPR this morning. Perhaps our "Christian" legislature needs to review their scripture, starting with this verse from James (brother of Jesus):

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.