Bevin to Quadriplegics: Get Up and Get to Work, You Lazy Takers!

No, I am not kidding.

Bevin's supposed to make a "major healthcare announcement" at - though he's unlikely to have much of an audience as Frankfort is supposed to get hit with an ice storm plus four inches of snow by then.

Governor I Got Mine Fuck You is eager to be the first governor to take advantage of new rules from the Orange Loser forcing everyone off Medicaid and into the salt mines, no exceptions.

In a letter to state Medicaid directors Thursday morning, the Trump administration announced that it would allow states to require Medicaid recipients to participate in a work program or other form of approved “community engagement” in order to retain their health benefits. While there will supposedly be exceptions for disabled people, allowing states to implement the work requirement is a terrible idea. As a disability lawyer and disabled person myself, I know this policy change will be disastrous for my community in a number of important ways.

My first concern involves the eligibility process. According to the Washington Post, states will be able to decide for themselves who qualifies as “disabled” for the purpose of being exempt from the work requirement. No matter how broad they define the category, there will be disabled people who do not qualify for the exemption even though they should.

I know this from experience. Indeed, in my role as an appeals lawyer for people applying for social security disability, I often deal with similar problems. The Social Security Administration acknowledges that its standard for social security disability eligibility is “very strict.” Many people who eventually do qualify for benefits have to go through several appeals that can take years. And even if the standard for Medicaid work-requirement exemption is much more lenient than the standard for social security, it still grants the state a mechanism requiring people to fight for coverage they should be entitled to.

And what about hundreds of thousands of bedridden seniors in nursing homes? Medicaid pays 80 percent of nursing home bills in this country. Maybe those oldsters could push brooms from their beds.

Also half of all childbirth costs.  Maybe the most efficient path there is not to expect newborns to actually haul coal, but just turn them into cold cuts for starving disabled miners to eat.

Cutting Medicaid - and that's what this is, a massive cut in the health plan that supports children, the elderly and the disabled - is eating our seed corn.

But Bevin and his butt buddy don't care about that; they only care about eliminating every Democratic program that give working people a chance to survive in a libertarian economy - and good reasons to vote against repugs.

Hey, only 14 calendar days - 10 working days - to file to run for office in Kentucky's 2018 elections.  Many fine seats still have no Democratic candidates!  Don't let them go begging!