How have your Repug state legislators ruined your life today?

We were warned.  The late, great, lamented Molly Ivins warned us. When it comes to daily life, it's our state legislators who have the most control over what we can do and whether we can do it safely.

Take Kentucky's General Assembly.  Please.

Since repugs took over the state house in 2016 for full control of the legislative and executive branches, they have been systematically dismantling the structures of civilization Kentucky progressives have managed to erect.

• slashing already minimal benefits for the poor, sick and disabled.

• denying the humanity of vagina-havers and condemning them to a slow, painful death of sepsis after an illegal abortion or a lifetime of forced birth. 

• canceling all state incentives for renewable energy and slapping a giant annual tax on the owners of electric cars.

• eliminating all background checks, training and permit fees for concealed carry.  Now you can get shot and killed for failing to genuflect to the Pumpkin Traitor anytime, anywhere in the Commonwealth. 

• exempting the governor and legislators from being subject to the courts, in case any dogooding libs try to sue their motherfucking asses for all of that unconstitutional bullshit.

and, of course, the coup de grace:

• hiding from the public all records of how and why legislators are fucking us over.

Kentucky repugs did this.  But Kentucky Democrats are letting them do it.  All of this and much, much worse.

Of Course We Can Afford A Civilized Nation

And this doesn't even count how much more we could do if the non-working rich actually paid their fair share.

 Down with Tyranny:

 

 

27 Days.  VOTE.  Vote for the Democratic candidates who agree with that list and pledge to implement it.

 

VOTE!

Bevin's Fucking With Medicaid Costing Kentucky Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Gov. Steve Beshear's expanded Medicaid brought billions of dollars into Kentucky. Not just direct federal payments, but the economic growth of saved regional hospitals, retained doctors and nurses, and healthy residents.

But Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You destroyed that, and now the bill is coming due.

From the Herald:

Warning of a nearly $300 million potential shortfall in Kentucky's Medicaid program, officials say they could eliminate health coverage for more than 480,000 people to balance the state's budget.

This is the same old repug shit they're been pulling for 40 years: Sabotage a successful Democratic program then claim it doesn't work.  Use that lie to demand more massive cuts to successful social programs in order to shove more tax dollars down the gullets of the obscenely rich.

That's not a Medicaid shortfall: it the result of repugs stealing the state Treasury.  The chief thief is a billionaire: make him pay the $300 million.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article217580810.html#storylink=cpy

What Fiendish Medicaid Fuckery is Bevin Planning Now?

First he reversed the denial of vision and dental coverage, and now he's cancelled the higher co-pays.

He didn't do it because a judge ordered him to, he didn't do it because he suddenly saw error of his libertarian ways, and he sure as fuck didn't do it out of the kindness of the sewage pump that pretends to be him heart.

He did it to throw everybody off while he perfects some massive plot to eliminate all the Kentucky poors, once and for all.

Judge snatches thousands of Kentuckians from Bevin's Medicaid Cuts

The trump-taint-lickers on the Supreme Court will throw them back, of course, but for the moment we get to point and laugh at Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's latest defeat.

From CNN:

A federal judge ruled Friday that Kentucky cannot require certain Medicaid recipients to get jobs or lose their benefits.

In a closely watched case, US District Court Judge James Boasberg voided the federal government's approval of Kentucky's request to implement work requirements and kicked the matter back to the Department of Health & Human Services for further review. 

 

"...The [Health] Secretary never adequately considered whether Kentucky HEALTH would in fact help the state furnish medical assistance to its citizens, a central objective of Medicaid," Boasberg wrote, referring to Kentucky's Medicaid overhaul. "This signal omission renders his determination arbitrary and capricious."

 

The decision blocks the state -- at least temporarily -- from moving forward with its plan to launch its Medicaid overhaul on July 1.

Remember, this work rule has nothing to do with making imaginary Medicaid lazy takers go to work.  All non-disabled, adult Medicaid recipients without care duties already work, mostly full-time.  What they don't do is have time to travel to a state office every month and fill out reams of paperwork in what is just another example of the Bevin-trump maladministrations' capricious cruelty. 

Your Tax Dollars in the Greedy Mitts of Super-Rich Fckwads

Zandar nails it:

Just remember that when Republicans tell you that we can't afford roads, bridges, schools, clean water, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and health care, just remember they had no problem giving Apple $47 billion a year to buy their own stock.

Privatizing is About Nothing But Corporate Greed

As Kentucky Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You prepares to use his budget director's lies to justify gutting what remains of state government, keep this to hand as a reminder that the only thing billionaire privatizers build is their own offshore bank accounts,.

 

Anything that qualifies as a public service - education, health care, transportation, water and sewer, veterans benefits, law enforcement, criminal justice, parks and recreation and more - must be provided by public servants, not corporate interests.  Public servants who are well-paid, with full benefits including generous defined-benefit pensions.  That is because only such public servants on the public payroll can be trusted to do what is in the public service.

Public servants do not work for profit.  They work for the people.

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:

Privatization of any public service is not about quality. It's about ideology and about into whose pockets tax dollars flow. It arises from the privatizer's belief that any product or service provided by "we the people" that might even in theory be provided by the private sector is a crime against capitalism. They don't see a need to be filled or a service to be improved or a duty to be met. They see billions of dollar$ budgeted annually of which they are not getting their cut.

They want to privatize public education — a middle-man in every middle school — because the single largest component of every state's annual budget is education and They. Want. Their. Cut. So they have demonized teachers and public pensions and public servants who stand between them and their payday. They have cut budgets to degrade services and hasten institutional decline to pave the way for eliminating the public from public service and services.

SNIP 

Those promoting privatizaton want to sell off publicly owned infrastructure for a song, public trusts you, your parents and grandparents and I paid through our lifetimes to build and maintain. Privatizers do not want to fix public infrastructure. They want to extract profits from it. They are rentiers looking to suck even harder off the public teat with far less accountability.

The VA is yet another program they hope to turn into a profit-producing venture by cutting costs and shortchanging patients under the rubric of "efficiency." And when they have sucked all the profit they can from it, they will abandon it for the next investment opportunity and discard its empty husk, like a retailer with an underperforming big-box store.

And public education? They want to privatize it as well, slowly weakening its funding by diverting resources to vouchers and charters because, you know, choice and competition. The real goal is to increase the pressure to fully privatize public education mandated by state constitutions from the Atlantic to the Pacific since their adoption, thus to open "the Big Enchilada" to private investors. They too will cut costs and services to shave off more public tax dollars for themselves, meaning less for children's education.

The vultures are slowly privatizing prisons as well, and perversely incentivizing lawmakers, judges and law enforcement to keep prison beds filled and investors' portfolios padded. I'm wondering when individual Americans get vouchers from the Pentagon to purchase their own national defense. Because, you know, choice and competition.

But what happens to public schools and children's education, for example, when the system is fully privatized and hollowed out, and investors decide the hot new investment opportunity lies somewhere else? They just walk away. Investors have no commitment to the public good, no faith to keep with public trust, only to their bottom lines, especially for services like the VA's that are not and were never intended to be for-profit. Want to improve the VA? Improve the VA. Privatizing it is its death sentence.

Privatizers are the Midas cult. They believe anything that can be turned into gold should be, including wounded veterans and children. They are the corporate raider from Pretty Woman, who believes more in making money than in building things. They don't believe in this country. They believe in stripping it. Their lobbyists have turned our legislatures into chop shops so they can sell off America for parts. They have no shame, because shame is not as profitable as having none.

* * * * * * * *

For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail. (If you are already on my email list, check your in-box.)

Bevin: Protesting Teachers Caused Child Rape

No, really.  I am not even exaggerating.

From the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin, asked Friday about teachers leaving the classrooms to attend a protest rally in Frankfort, said, “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

Prove it, motherfucker.  Name the child.  Name the assaulter. If you don't you are the responsible one, not the teachers you falsely accuse.

If anyone out there is looking for a bullshit statement from  an elected official worse than the Orange Loser's "there are good people on both sides" of a Nazi rally, Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You just handed it to you.

And the line of Democratic candidates eager to challenge this trumpian moron next year just got longer.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article208881784.html#storylink=cpy

And the Teachers Are Leading Us

Holy Shit. Buses packed with teachers and students from all over Kentucky bringing traffic to a standstill; not a parking place to found within a mile of the Capitol.  The crowd is the biggest I have ever seen at the Capitol.  The signs are the BEST.

Live updates at the Herald.

Teachers Walk Out Against New Repug State Budget That Firebombs KY Economy

When you can't get through to 911, when your children have to learn standing up in classrooms of 40 and 50 kids, when you have to pay $30 tolls to drive 10 miles on a highway that's more potholes than pavement, when you can't find a local doctor and the nearest hospital is a 3-hour drive, when you have to buy bottled water to shower in because the tap water is that contaminated ...

... be sure to thank the repug super-majorities in the General Assembly, for passing a budget that is an abomination, but still not as bad as the hellish cuts Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You wanted.

From the Herald:

Kentucky’s two largest school districts in Jefferson and Fayette counties were among 26 across the state that closed schools Friday after hundreds of school employees refused to work following the legislature’s passage of pension reform.
Fayette County District spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said on Thursday night, more than 1,200 school employees reported they would be absent.

The news came after the state legislature passed a surprise pension-reform bill in Frankfort. At least 15 districts said they were closing because of teacher absences. About another 10 closed Friday morning without explanation. In addition, Breathitt County said it’s dismissing at 12 p.m. but gave no public explanation.

SNIP

“After exhausting all means of positive protest such as, emailing, texting, calling, visiting Frankfort, having walk ins, pension forums, it was evident that drastic measures had to be taken for us to be heard,” said Fayette Education Association President Jessica Hiler . “Although closing school was not an option that we wanted for our students, they have no better advocate than their teachers and other public school employees. We have to be the voice for our students and that means we must continue to advocate for funding and resources needed to provide all students with a world class, 21st Century education.”

Deffendall said teachers at several schools were spending the morning packing food for their students living in poverty who wouldn’t otherwise be able to get meals provided by the school. 

"Lawmakers" gutted teachers' pensions in a secret, last-second move that violated state law requiring open discussion and an actuarial analysis.  Attorney General Andy Beshear vowed to file suit against the bill the instant Bevin signs it.

The governor's race next year is going to be about 14 Democratic candidates competing to be the one who hates Bevin the most.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article207399739.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article207399739.html#storylink=cpy

Not Even Raising Taxes Will Save KY Repugs

As Molly Ivins wrote about Ross Perot when he declared that the problem with Texas schools was too much football, KY House repugs have gone crazier than a peach orchard boar.

They wrote a budget that not only reverses the governor's spending cuts, but does so by - wait for it - raising taxes.

Or maybe they are not so crazy as they are fucking terrified of their pissed-off voters replacing them with Dems in November.

But don't worry: the taxes they propose are all on working people. They completely ignore the giant hordes of cash stolen by corporations and the already filthy rich.

Good job, House repugs.  Keep making it easier for Democratic candidates to turn out our voters.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article202759424.html#storylink=cpy

From the Herald:

In a budget plan unveiled Wednesday, House Republicans proposed three tax increases they said would raise about $500 million over the next two years, which they would largely use to reverse spending cuts to education programs proposed by Gov. Matt Bevin. 

The Republican’s plan raises the tax on a pack of cigarettes by 50 cents, eliminates a $10 individual income tax credit and levies a 25 cent tax on prescription opioids each time a dosage is sold by a distributor to a pharmacy, the first such tax in the country, according to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Steven Rudy, R-Paducah.

Rejecting Tax Plan Proves KY Repugs Want to Kill Pensions, Not Save Them

Oh, look, guys:  an actual tax reform plan that raises $600 million to save employee pensions while preserving essential programs and making the greedhead rich start paying their fair share.

But no.  That's not what the repugs who own KY state government want.  They want an excuse to to the state economy into Haiti. Destroying the lives of 35,000 state employees is just gravy.

From the Herald:

State Rep. James Kay, D-Versailles, last week filed a package of five bills that could collect more than $600 million a year in fresh revenue for Kentucky’s ailing public pension systems with taxes on tobacco, prescription opiates and outsourced labor and potentially raise even more money by scrutinizing the state’s long-unexamined tax breaks.

But Kay’s plan appears dead on arrival.

House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, on Friday said the Republican-led House of Representatives won’t consider any bills during this legislative session that simply raise additional revenue — not even for the state’s $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

SNIP

In an interview outside Osborne’s Capitol office, Kay said he isn’t surprised that his bills are doomed. For all of the talk of a “pension crisis” in Frankfort, Republican leaders in the General Assembly won’t consider anyone’s ideas but their own, which focus on cutting retirement benefits for teachers and other public workers, he said.
 

“I’ve worked on this comprehensive plan for three years,” said Kay, who is a member of the Public Pension Oversight Board.

“I presented this plan in its raw form to the pension oversight board, and it got no response,” Kay said. “I presented this plan to House leadership; same reaction. The current approach is to cut benefits and not to raise revenue. They don’t want to look at anything that’s outside of that box. They want to solve this problem on the backs of state employees and teachers.”

James Kay for Governor, goddammit.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199676599.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199676599.html#storylink=cpy

Gov. Illiterate Philistine Is Trying to Kill The University Press of Kentucky. Stop Him.

Kentucky Home Boy and founder of the infamous Lawyers, Guns and Money Robert Farley makes the case:

Governor Matt Bevin has introduced a budget that includes dramatic cuts to a number of important programs in Kentucky.  A full list  can be found here.  One of the programs on the chopping block is the University Press of Kentucky, which depends upon the state for a portion of its operating budget.

I am not neutral observer on this question. I sit on the board of UPK (an enormously intellectual rewarding position, if you ever get a chance to do something similar), and of course Grounded was published by the UPK. It should surprise no one that I am a strong advocate of the value of what UPK does, both for Kentucky and for the broader national community.  I’m not going to argue against any of the other priorities.  This, it seems to me, is a fool’s game; almost all of these programs are of value, and the government of the Commonwealth of Kentucky would be better advised to find appropriate revenue streams than to cut away at the things that make the state great. 

Having served on the board, and having read more than a few UPK books (I discuss some in a twitter thread here) I can unequivocally testify to the value of the works that UPK brings to the public.  The particular strengths of the Press lay in its Military History collection, its Classic Hollywood collection, and its collections in Kentucky studies, Appalachian studies, civil rights, and diplomatic history. 

Obviously, not everyone who reads this blog hails from Kentucky.  Nevertheless, I think it would be helpful to give (in a respectful, cordial way) the legislators contemplating these cuts a sense of the value of a good university press for the Commonwealth.  I’ve quoted some material below on ways to help:

Now is the time to make a case for the Press’s longstanding contribution to the Commonwealth. Please consider contacting legislators of both parties, and conversations with lawmakers you know personally will be of even greater benefit to the Press. Reaching out to legislators on the [Senate] and [House] appropriations and revenue committees  is key, and your advocacy between now and early next week is critical. Many of the legislators on these committees hail from the western, eastern, and northern parts of the state, so it will also help for lawmakers to understand that we are an operation that serves all of Kentucky, not just UK.

Did you know:

• The Press has sold more than 4.6 MILLION books since its founding in 1943!
• UPK is a consortium operation of ALL Kentucky’s state universities, as well as five private colleges and the two major historical Societies; it is one of only 6 consortium presses in the country
• The Press published 61 books by consortium partner authors in the past ten years, more than 12% of our publications
• We are a thoroughly bipartisan operation with something for everyone: Kentucky’s outdoors and natural history, bourbon history, and military history are among our prime publishing areas

The University Press of Kentucky enters its 75^th year stronger than ever, reaching readers around the globe and telling the story of Kentucky’s rich and complex culture and heritage. With your help and advocacy, we can look towards a long and bright future.

What's the last book Gov. Real Employers Don't Care About Literacy even read?  Can he name one single book published by the University Press of Kentucky?  My personal favorite is Thomas Merton* Wendell Berry's Unforeseen Wilderness, with photographs by Ralph Meatyard.

But that one's for people who give an actual fuck about the people and environment of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

* My apologies to all three men.  Too early on a Sunday morning before coffee.

The Programs Gov. "Who Cares About Kentucky's Future" Hates

OK, motherfucker: You can cut all of these 70 programs that you can - without googling - recite the program's mission, why that mission deserves execution and its current budget.

I will bet my job that Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You cannot meet that condition for any of these programs.

He just looked at the name - education, arts, teachers, help for children in poverty or for autistic children - spat on the floor and snarled "I hate that shit."

Every one of these programs was created specifically to solve a problem, to fill a need, to improve and grow and create the Commonwealth.

Titles don't tell you that.  People helped by these programs tell you that.  But Gov. Hold My Beer isn't going to let Kansas' Sam Brownback beat him in the Repug Destroy Your State games. 

Cutting state budgets never - ever - saves money.  That's because state governments are not families and are not businesses.

State governments are economic stimulators.  State governments spend tax revenues on needed public services that stimulate economic activity and growth.

Private corporations stimulate nothing but their own profits, usually at the expense of employees, customers and communities.

State governments balance that greed with public services.  State governments hire state workers to provide those services and to stimulate the economy through those services - yes, including welfare and disability payments and public education and grants to artists and through their own economic spending.

It's a virtuous circle that continues perpetually ... unless it is disturbed by budget cuts.

Gov. You Should Have Born Rich is a billionaire.  He thinks business runs the economy.  He has no fucking clue how to run state government.  He's a fucking menace.  His budget cuts are going to strip mine Kentucky's economy.

KY Repug Leader Files Bill to Legalize Pot

Since repugs only get behind progressive initiatives when it directly affects themselves or their family (see gay marriage, children of repug electeds who want), I'm going to guess that someone Dan Seum loves is suffering from physical pain, can't get legal opiods and is using pot to relieve the agony.

We're not judging you, Dan Seum - OK, we're judging you for being a repug - but what took you so long?  Are you going to let your bill sit there, or are you going to lobby your fellow repugs to get it passed?  Also, it's time to share.

From the Herald:

A bill to legalize marijuana in Kentucky was introduced Wednesday by a Republican lawmaker who touted the value of cannabis as a revenue source for a cash-strapped state government.

Sen. Dan Seum, a member of the Senate's GOP leadership team, said his bill would legalize marijuana use for adults 21 or older. He said it's time for Kentucky to join the marijuana legalization trend taking root elsewhere.

"It's already out there, it's always very available to anybody who wants it," the majority caucus chair said in an interview. "So you legalize it, you tax it and the state gets the new revenue."

Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use.

Not for nothing, but I have been saying this for years.

Taxing the production, processing and use of marijuana could generate between $100 million and $200 million yearly — revenue that Kentucky badly needs, Seum said.

Seum's bill was introduced a day after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin proposed spending cuts of more than 6 percent across most of state government. Lawmakers also are looking at shoring up the state's woefully underfunded public pension systems.

But other prominent senators quickly dashed the prospects that Kentucky could soon embrace legal toking.

Yeah, the repugs are repeating the century-old lies linking pot to heroin and crime.  For the record:  Pot is not an opioid. Pot is not a narcotic.  Pot is not a hallucinogen.  Pot makes you too fucking sleepy to even think about violence, much less commit it.  The biggest threat from pot use is rampant obesity from giving in to the munchies.

Not to mention that using pot can help opioid addicts get off the hard stuff.  I think we might have one or two of those here in Kentucky.

It is the height of self-destructive stupidity to criminalize pot while keeping the far more lethal alcohol and nicotine on store shelves. 

(Seum) said that decriminalizing marijuana would benefit police. "It frees a tremendous amount of money up in law enforcement to go after the violent people," he said.

Seum said legalizing marijuana would create jobs in production, processing and retail. And he gave a libertarian-leaning justification, too.

"It gives people the right to conduct their lives as they so choose, to partake in a product they're already partaking in, and we tax it and we generate revenue," Seum said.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article195175174.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article195175174.html#storylink=cpy

Hey, DEMOCRATS!  Where the fuck are you on this?  I'm sure it's fun to watch the repugs twist in the wind on this issue, but meanwhile your constituents are suffering from lack of access to pot  and from budget cuts legal pot could fix.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article195175174.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin's Secret Budget to Turn Kentucky Into Prime Shithole

"I'm eliminating 70 programs and cutting essential services 6 percent, but I'm not telling you which ones until after you approve it."

The only answer to this arrogant rubbish is a loud raspberry and screaming laughter.

Any legislator who falls for this fiduciary and political crime should be run out of Frankfort on a rail.

From the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin proposed a two-year state budget Tuesday night that would eliminate “about 70” state government programs and cut spending at many state agencies by 6.25 percent. 

Bevin, who provided lawmakers with highlights of his plan in a sparsely attended 7 p.m. speech, did not immediately list the programs he wants to eliminate or which agencies will be spared from budget cuts. Unlike previous governors, Bevin did not brief the media on details of his proposal ahead of his speech.

Typical of business creeps with no public service experience, Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You has no clue how government and state budgets work.

Tax money spent on public services that improve the health and well-being of Kentucky's residents is not "spending." It's investment.  The returns on that investment is the education and health care that grows a strong economy. 

Bevin is following the Brownback budget-stripping script that turned Kansas into Haiti-on-the-Prairie.

You have 10 calendar days and eight working days to file to run against the spineless worms in the General Assembly who are about to vote for that monstrosity.  DO IT NOW.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article195017314.html#storylink=cpy

Why Bevin is Dead Wrong About Medicaid

Mostly because he's an obscenely rich libertarian motherfucker who thinks that people who were not born rich don't deserve to live.

More specifically:

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Now, before you get all “ARE THEY GONNA MAKE NURSING HOME RESIDENTS WORK IN COAL MINES,” the letter is quite clear that states can only throw people off healthcare for not working if they’re “non-elderly, non-pregnant adult Medicaid beneficiaries who are eligible for Medicaid on a basis other than disability.” So relax! Sending Meemaw to the coal mines is Phase III, and won’t even be considered until CHIP reauthorization is made conditional on the repeal of child labor laws.

SNIP

And if most people currently getting Medicaid are already working, or seem to have a good reason not to be working (which may win them an exemption from the work requirement), then why the hell is a work requirement needed in the first goddamn place? That’s simple: You gotta tighten the screws on poor people, because no matter what the reality is, Republicans just know life in poverty is an endless funtimes parade of free stuff. The goal here is to add more barriers to people living the high life on Medicaid, and the result will be fewer people getting the medical care that really can improve their job prospects.

And Scott Lemieus at LGM:

Emma Sandoe is, as always on this subject, excellent:

Eight in 10 Medicaid beneficiaries of working age already live in working families. Recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that the most Medicaid beneficiaries who are not working are sick or disabled (but do not meet the rigid definitions of disability outlined by the Social Security Administration), or they are taking care of their family who may be elderly, sick or children that need care. Many more are in school or are retired.

These people have valid reasons for not working and taking away their health insurance will likely make their health worse or worsen the health of the people that they are caring for. The administration has created a solution to a problem that does not exist.

This policy will make it more difficult for people who are eligible for Medicaid and are working in low-wage jobs to be enrolled in the program. Navigating the complexities of health insurance bureaucracy is difficult for anyone. This policy adds another layer of complexity to the system. Now, beneficiaries will have to take additional steps when applying for coverage, as well as monitor and ensure their state government is accurately recording their information to receive the benefits they are already eligible for. Think how the country would respond if Medicare beneficiaries had to regularly prove that they were aging to keep their Medicare cards.

In reality, IT systems don’t always work, mail gets lost and people working two to three jobs to get by and still making little money may not have the time to correct the paperwork. Healthy people who want to get preventative health care will drop out of Medicaid because the additional burden is too high. These people may miss cancer screenings and diagnosis of chronic conditions.

The purpose of any insurance is to protect against financial devastation. Rigorous and recent research shows that Medicaid coverage not only improves a beneficiary’s health, it protects low-income people against bankruptcy and financial loss. These important protections have reduced extreme poverty and allowed many people opportunities to get out of poverty.

The administration has tried to make this policy more palatable by making exceptions for people who volunteer or have a severe disability. But this policy is so heavily pushed by the administration and Republican states because they think it will reduce the number of people on Medicaid. When we’ve tied work to other government run programs, it does little to increase work. In fact, we’ve seen the opposite: that access to health care can make it easier for people to find jobs. We’ve seen that when people don’t have access to needed medications it is harder for them to find jobs.

The point about how adding further conditions creates bureaucratic impediments that inevitably cause even eligible people to lose their insurance is particularly important.

And this avoidable suffering and misery has become a pillar of Republican policy. A collaboration between one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States and Republican state legislators had denied Medicaid to millions of people. A Republican Congress came frighteningly close to enacting massive Medicaid cuts in order to fund a massive upper-class tax cut. And now, having failed to gut Medicaid, Trump and various state legislatures are lashing out against some of the most vulnerable people in society. This is what Republican health care policy is, and it’s simply vile.

"Simply vile" pretty much covers it.

Bevin Lying About Medicaid Like the Motherfucking Liar He Is

A) This isn't about saving money.  This is about destroying every social support system that helps people who are not obscenely fucking rich.  Like Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You.

B) Cutting Medicaid does not save money.  It costs billions of dollars in health care that is no longer covered by a federal program but rather has to be picked up by hospital emergency rooms who then pass the cost onto other patients: us.

C) The total state dollars spent on the tiny number of people who don't "deserve" Medicaid in the eyes of Gov. You Should Have Been Born Rich, Sucker  amounts to less than Bevin spends on lunch.

Deborah Yetter at the Courier:

In a move the state says would save money but cut another 9,000 people from Medicaid, Gov. Matt Bevin's administration is seeking permission from the federal government for more changes to the state-federal health plan that serves 1.4 million Kentuckians.

The changes, filed this week, revise a sweeping plan to the state's Medicaid program Bevin proposed last year seeking federal permission, or a "waiver," to reshape the program in order to impose more costs and personal responsibility on consumers.

The Bevin administration said the changes, aimed largely at "able-bodied" adults, are part of an effort to "provide dignity to individuals" and help them toward "independence from public assistance."

SNIP

But health care advocates in Kentucky said the changes do nothing to improve the proposal Bevin introduced last year and worsen it in several ways, most significantly increasing from about 86,000 to 95,000 the number of people expected to lose health coverage over the five-year life of the plan.

They say many people will find the new requirements excessively complex and will lose coverage because they are unable to meet them.

"In my mind, this just takes a bad waiver and makes it worse," said Dustin Pugel, a research associate with the Kentucky Center on Economic Policy. 

SNIP

The state Cabinet for Health and Family Services plans two public hearings on the proposed changes:

► July 14, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., in Somerset at the Center for Rural Development, 2292 South Highway 27, Suite 300.

► July 17, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., in Frankfort, after the meeting of the joint House-Senate Health and Welfare Committee.

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!

Kansas, Here We Come

As Bevin and his billionaire buddies light their cigars with C-notes they stole from working Kentuckians, the legislature is slashing and burning what's left of Kentucky's economy.

Because for the nth time, rich people and corporations don't create jobs; working people who spend their paltry paychecks create jobs.

But repugs are making sure working Kentuckians don't have any money to spend.

From the Herald:

Now the legislature is preparing to write a two-year budget that Republican Gov. Matt Bevin warned this week will be “brutal” because of a massive increase in costs for public pensions, as well as Medicaid and prisons. Lawmakers say they have no political appetite in this election year for tax increases that would raise more revenue. So everyone is bracing for the worst.

“They are — they are systemically ruining our schools on purpose,” Dunn said at the Capitol rally, wiping tears from her eyes.

The economic catastrophe in Kansas has proven beyond all doubt that budget cuts drive a state into bankruptcy.  Only more revenue - massive taxes on the rich and corporations - and spending on education and infrastructure and health care can save and grow an economy.

But Kentucky repugs see the Democratic tsunami coming this year and they think avoiding necessary tax increases is going to save them.

It won't. It will just hand a dying state to the Democratic candidates who take back the General Assembly in November.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article193214139.html#storylink=cpy