Bullet-to-the-Head Budget Cuts

Deborah Yetter at the Courier makes a point that needs to be repeated forcefully and frequently: state budget cuts in social services cost not only human lives, but tax dollars.

Services for elderly and disabled Kentuckians are facing another round of budget cuts over the next two years — which could force more people into nursing homes and ultimately cost the state even more to care for them, according to lawmakers and advocates.

“We’re almost to the catastrophic point in aging services,” said Rep. Jimmie Lee, an Elizabethtown Democrat, speaking at a meeting of the House human services budget subcommittee, of which he is chairman.

Rep. Jim Wayne, a Louisville Democrat, agreed. “I think it should concern everyone.”

Advocates said the state must find a way to fund services such as meals on wheels and personal in-home care, contending that the demand will only increase as Kentucky’s population ages.

“I don’t think people understand what’s coming,” said Ellen Kershaw, representing the state’s Alzheimer’s Association. “We are very concerned.”

The Courier-Journal, in a series of stories in 2010, reported that advocates are predicting a “silver tsunami” of elderly residents in Kentucky as the population ages. By 2030, the number of Kentucians over 60 is expected to hit 1.2 million — about one-quarter of the state’s population.

Yet state officials have done little to address the needs of the elderly and disabled, continuing to cut scarce resources — a move guaranteed to force more people into nursing homes, the most costly care and most often funded through Medicaid, advocates said.

That assumes, of course, that teabagging repugs and their fellow-traveling conservadems will respond to the desperate needs of elderly and disabled Kentuckians by actually paying for that more expensive care.

Silly Deborah: they'll just let the surplus population die in the streets, as an object lesson to others who might think their tax dollars are meant for anyone but the already obscenely wealthy.