The Goat Rope: Gearing up

December 27, 2016

Gearing up

Most people who read this blog know that everything is going to be on the table-and nearly everyone is going to be on the menu in the next presidential administration. We know that Paul Ryan wants to kill Medicare in its current form. But in this NY Times piece, Gene Sperling warns us not to take our eyes off Medicaid. We can expect a major push to block grant the program and cut it hugely over several years. It would also threaten CHIP, the popular Children's' Health Insurance Program.

Who would this hurt? Very low income parents receiving temporary assistance. Kids in families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. The millions of working Americans earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level who gained coverage under the Medicaid Expansion provision of the Affordable Care Act. People with disabilities. And elderly people who worked hard all their lives but burned through assets when they needed long term care. Not to mention the millions of people who work in the field of health and long term care.

If you care about things like this, it's probably time to do the whole loins/girding up thing. Like now.

1 comment:

Hollowdweller said...: When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action.

We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.

We come to speak for this broader class of businessmen.

Ah. my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast; but those hardy pioneers who braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country.

It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.

We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them! - WJB; 12/28/16, 1:29 PM