Now that's how you save money: throwing people off Medicaid, or making it next to impossible for them to get it in the first place. Innovative!
But Rep. Phil Gingrey kind of gives up the game here: "'Take the handcuffs off the governors,' Gingrey (R-Ga.) said at the bill's unveiling on Tuesday, arguing that current law prevents the states from 'ferreting out waste, fraud, and abuse, finding out if someone's falsified information on income…maybe even if they're illegal immigrants.'" The primary objection here isn't budgetary, it's moral. Many conservatives feel that poverty is a moral failing, and if you're getting help from a government program, you're probably some kind of scamming welfare queen sucking off people who work for a living, getting a benefit you don't deserve.
May 5, 2011
Because the poor are immoral
Which is why, I think, Republicans like Oklahoma's James Lankford defend oil subsidies, but hate any money going to poor people. Their plan to reduce Medicaid costs? To have the option of kicking unworthy people off. You know, like the poor.
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That is a very common response around here, but I will say that once some of these conservatives visit the sites where we feed poor people and start meeting them, and knowing their stories, they ever so slightly change their tune. Most of them only know the poor in the abstract, they have never had an actual relationship with them.
On another note, a coworker came in my office this morning and announced (to my surprise) that he was proud to be white, Christian, heterosexual and successful and was not going to apologize any more for it.
When pressed as to whom he had been apologizing to, he was somewhat vague.
This is the culture that the Christian Right here has developed, successful victims, whining when their conscious pricks them from something on TV.
Sorry I had to say the above, even if it was off topic.
I didn't think that was off topic. this link definitely is, but the Baptist ministers made me smile. It's nice to see people standing up for sanity and civility. Just wanted to share that since I'm so frequently critical of religious organizations.
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