<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">In order to abandon someone, you first must have <SPAN style="RIGHT: auto" id=misspell-0><SPAN>originally</SPAN></SPAN> been with them. As the State of Texas has never been with the poor, it cannot abandon them, it can just keep ignoring th<VAR id=yui-ie-cursor></VAR>em in hopes they get richer or die.</SPAN></div>
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<div style="RIGHT: auto"><SPAN style="RIGHT: auto">Donovan J. Arnold</SPAN></div>
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<DIV style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; LINE-HEIGHT: 0; MARGIN: 5px 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; HEIGHT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 0px; BORDER-TOP: #ccc 1px solid; BORDER-RIGHT: #ccc 1px solid; PADDING-TOP: 0px" class=hr contentEditable=false readonly="true"></DIV><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Art Deco <art.deco.studios@gmail.com><BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">To:</SPAN></B> vision2020@moscow.com <BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Sent:</SPAN></B> Wednesday, July 18, 2012 9:06 AM<BR><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Subject:</SPAN></B> [Vision2020] The Rush to Abandon the Poor<BR></FONT></DIV><BR>
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<DIV class=yiv220973303timestamp>July 17, 2012</DIV>
<H1>The Rush to Abandon the Poor</H1>
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<div>The state with the country’s worst health care record just happens to have a governor who has been the loudest voice against national efforts to improve it. </div>
<div>A quarter of the residents of Texas, 6.3 million people, are uninsured, by far <A href="http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=125&cat=3&sub=39&yr=252&typ=2&o=a&sortc=6" rel=nofollow target=_blank>the highest percentage</A> in the country. (That number includes more than a million children.) Texas ranks last <A href="http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparemaptable.jsp?ind=44&cat=2" rel=nofollow target=_blank>in prenatal care</A> <A href="http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/texas-last-in-nation-on-health-care-report-2411062.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>and finished last</A> on a new federal assessment of overall health quality that examined factors like disease prevention, deaths from illnesses, and cancer treatment. </div>
<div>Yet Gov. Rick Perry — strangely puffed up as he was so often in his presidential bid — recently <A href="http://governor.state.tx.us/files/press-office/O-SebeliusKathleen201207090024.pdf" rel=nofollow target=_blank>told the Obama administration</A> that he would proudly refuse a huge infusion of Medicaid money that would significantly reduce those shameful statistics and cover 1.7 million more people. The same indifference to suffering that pushed Texas to the bottom is now threatening to keep it there. </div>
<div>At least <A title="A Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/governors-face-hard-choices-over-medicaid-expansion.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>five other Republican governors have made a similar choice</A>, announcing that they will not expand their Medicaid program for the poor even though the federal government would pay for almost all of it for several years under President Obama’s health care reform law. </div>
<div>Their refusal illuminates a growing divide over the nature of a state government’s role. Around the country, <A title="NYT report" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/us/in-report-on-states-finances-a-grim-long-term-forecast.html?hp" rel=nofollow target=_blank>a new study shows,</A> states continue to face a fiscal crisis because of rising costs and Republican-driven cuts in federal aid. </div>
<div>While some governors and lawmakers are searching for new revenue sources, others are using the downturn as an excuse to end a long tradition of states being the final backstop for society’s neediest. </div>
<div>Over the last year, for example, <A href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/pennsylvania-joins-states-removing-safety-net-for-the-disabled.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>eight states</A> have cut or eliminated cash welfare payments to their poorest residents. It happened last week in Pennsylvania, where 61,000 residents — almost all of whom are disabled and poor — were told that they would abruptly lose their $200 monthly general assistance payments, all to save $150 million a year. Our hands are tied by a tightening budget, welfare officials told astonished recipients, though Gov. Tom Corbett’s hands <SPAN id=misspell-1 class=mark>didn</SPAN>’t seem restrained when he handed out <A href="http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-03/news/32509089_1_corbett-signs-school-vouchers-state-budget" rel=nofollow target=_blank>$300 million in business tax cuts</A> earlier this month. </div>
<div>Gov. John <SPAN id=misspell-2 class=mark>Kasich</SPAN> of Ohio has cut hundreds of millions from education, but when the state found itself with a $235 million surplus a few weeks ago, he announced that <A href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/07/04/surplus-goes-from-89-cents-to-482-million.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank>it would all go</A> into a rainy-day fund, doing nothing to deal with <A href="http://www.policymattersohio.org/state-budget-ohio-schools-jan2012" rel=nofollow target=_blank>rising classroom sizes</A>. In Maine, Gov. Paul <SPAN id=misspell-3 class=mark>LePage</SPAN> — who compared the health care reform law to <A href="http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/lepage-maine-irs-gestapo.php" rel=nofollow target=_blank>the Holocaust</A> — signed a budget bill in May that will reduce or eliminate existing Medicaid coverage <A
href="http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/11/politics/health-ruling-interpretation-puts-feds-at-odds-with-lepages-planned-mainecare-cuts/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>for 21,000 people</A>. </div>
<div>Mr. Perry, too, opposes the existing Medicaid program, and, in a recent letter to Washington, said that expanding it represented “brazen intrusions into the sovereignty of our state” and would “threaten even Texas with financial ruin.” The truth is that Washington will pay all the cost of the expansion for three years (then scale back to 90 percent). Mr. Perry’s bold resistance may play well politically in his state, but it’s nothing more than a stomach punch to the millions of uninsured in Texas who will have to stay that way. </div>
<div>Many mainstream Republican governors are taking a different approach. In a <A href="http://rgppc.com/medicaid-and-exchange-letter-2/" rel=nofollow target=_blank>letter to the president</A> last week, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said states should think carefully before they reject Washington’s money. Though he remained quite critical of health reform and Medicaid, he also noted that refusing the expansion would create “a significant gap in coverage” for low-income people. </div>
<div>For now, at least, Virginia recognizes an obligation to its weakest citizens. It’s time for Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa and Louisiana to do the same. </div>
<DIV class=yiv220973303articleCorrection></DIV></DIV><BR clear=all><BR>-- <BR>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<BR><A href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" rel=nofollow target=_blank ymailto="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</A><BR><BR><IMG src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><BR><BR></DIV><BR>=======================================================<BR>List services made available by First Step Internet,<BR>serving the communities of the <SPAN id=misspell-4 class=mark>Palouse</SPAN> since 1994.<BR> <A href="http://www.fsr.net/" target=_blank>http://www.fsr.net/</A><BR> <SPAN id=misspell-5 class=mark>mailto</SPAN>:<A href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</A><BR>=======================================================<BR><BR></DIV></DIV></div></body></html>