"Torture the Poors" spreads beyond Arizona

Arizona's death panels for non-rich transplant patients is only the most visible and publicized example of the widespread practice of making poor people suffer cruelly for Wall Street's trillion-dollar theft.

Digby:

I'm sure disabled people are at the head of the hiring lines right now. Employers don't have many people to choose from, after all.

And that's not all, sadly:

Here’s an entertaining fact for you: My brother-in-law Vincent receives toe and toenail care at the podiatrist. No he doesn’t wear toenail polish like Frank Burns did on M*A*S*H. A combination of skin issues, chronic obesity, and intellectual disability create mundane but important foot problems for Vincent that require serious attention.

He’s unlucky enough to require Medicaid. Luckily for him, though, he doesn’t live in South Carolina (h/t Diane Meier’s valuable tweets), since that state will no longer cover these mundane but important services. As today’s WYFF4 news puts it:

Starting in February 2011, Medicaid will no longer cover podiatry services, routine eye exams or dental services for anyone older than 21. Routine circumcisions for newborns, diabetic equipment and services and some wheelchair accessories are on the list. Hospice care services will also be eliminated.

You read that last one correctly. The state will no longer provide Medicaid coverage for hospice care.

Like an anxious investor watching a crashing stock market, I’m seeing what’s happening with Medicaid and wondering when states will finally hit bottom. One might think Arizona’s transplant policy provides a credible floor (listen here if you haven’t been following this). But maybe not. Here’s what is coming later to South Carolina:

In April, Medicaid will eliminate services under the state’s Community Long-term Care Program, which provides services to people at their home. That includes chore and appliance services, nutritional supplements, adult day health care nursing services and respite service. There will also be a reduction in the number of meals delivered to the home each week.

That’s a new one. Meals on wheels will apparently reduce its weekly meal deliveries from fourteen to ten.

I don’t quite know what to say, except to hope that this is some budgetary game of chicken, and these cuts don’t actually happen. Given what is happening around the country, there’s little reason to be hopeful.

This war on the safety net is starting to head into areas that we once would have thought were sacrosanct. I think it's the inevitable result of years of conservative cant, the cruel ethos of our post 9/11 rage and the unthinking embrace of post meltdown austerity. It's the perfect fetid petrie dish for the disaster capitalists to thrive.

Remember, these are the victims of the economic disaster who are being punished for the crimes committed by the banks and investment casinos of Wall Street.

Wall Street owes this country a trillion dollars for the damage it did to the economy. Until Wall Street writes that check, and Obama deposits it in the empty bank accounts of the states, the rest of us should not have to pay a single dime or suffer the slightest cut in public service.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?