Medicaid

Impressive response by Arizona Business Leaders™ to the terrible budget

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

scott walker az chamber of commercePhoto: AZ Chamber of Commerce and Industry announcement

By “impressive”, of course, I mean “pathetic”. The GOP led AZ Legislature dropped a turd of a budget in the middle of Friday night/Saturday morning that guts (among other things) university and community college funding and – because this is the cruelest session toward poor people that I’ve seen since I moved here in 1997 – cuts millions in Medicaid assistance, limits Temporary Assistance to Needy Families to an arbitrary lifetime cap of one year, and fails to fund child abuse and neglect prevention.

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Cathi Herrod, Goldwater Institute, & AZ Taxpayer PAC Spread Medicaid Lies on Twitter

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While following the ongoing #HobbyLobby Twitter storm today, I bumped into several Tweets by the Arizona Taxpayer Action Committee. (I have no idea how things like this get into my Twitter feed.) What caught my eye was that Goldwater Institute and Center for Arizona Policy documents were linked to the Tweets and former Arizona Legislator and Medicaid-expansion denier Frank Antenori (@FrankAntenori), @SonoranAlliance (Blog for Arizona’s evil right-wing twin), and @GodCountryFam reTweeted all of these.

AZTaxpayerAct2:54pm via Twitter Web Client

If you’re an Arizona legislator & voted for Medicaid expansion in 2013, you voted to allow tax $’s for abortion: blog.azpolicy.org/life/medicaid-…

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

AZTaxpayerAct3:04pm via Twitter Web Client

If you voted for Obamacare Medicaid Expansion you voted for corporate cronyism for the healthcare industrial complex goldwaterinstitute.org/blog/medicaid-…

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

AZTaxpayerAct3:11pm via Twitter Web Client

AZ legislators were warned against voting for Obamacare Medicaid but chose to listen to big money from the healthcare industrial complex.

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

AZTaxpayerAct3:09pm via Twitter Web Client

AZ legislators who voted for Obamacare Medicaid Expansion voted for tax hike as high as $739 Million over 2014-2019: goldwaterinstitute.org/10-reasons-to-…

Retweeted by FrankAntenori and 1 others

Alright, they made me look…

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States’ Rights Leads to Inequities in Healthcare

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by Pamela Powers Hannley This map exemplifies what is wrong with letting states' rights. State-by-state decisions lead to inequities, discrimination, legal inconsistencies, and redundant bureaucracies.  The map– created by The Advisory Board Company– shows how the states stack up (so far) regarding implementation of the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion. How does … Read more

Liberals to Dems: Just Say ‘No’ to Cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid

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300px-Keith_ellison-cropby Pamela Powers Hannley

In his recent talk in Tucson, John Nichols of The Nation warned against budget solutions proposed by the Fix the Debt Coalition, a group of 127 billionaires, "lesser millionaires," and corporate CEOs.

According to Nichols, this exclusive club of 1%ers is rolling out a $60 million advertising campaign to promote the new Simpson-Bowles Plan for debt reduction, according to Nichols. The original Simpson-Bowles Commission– dubbed the Cat Food Commission because of its cuts to senior citizen benefits– was infamously unpopular when it was proposed originally. The Simpson-Bowles redux may be even worse.  

How would the billionaires' club "fix the debt"? By reducing Social Security payments to the elderly and disabled, by raising the eligibility age for Medicare, by dramatically cutting Medicaid support for the poor, by eliminating the Affordable Care Act and changing Medicare to a voucher program for future recipients, by imposing austerity on 99%, and by [wait for it] lowering taxes on billionaires and corporations. 

This article (after the jump) from the Washington Post outlines exactly what Nichols warned Tucsonans about.

Progressives Shut Out of Koch Brothers Medicaid Forum

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Loft2013-03-07-2-sm72-sigby Pamela Powers Hannley

Thanks to publicity on this blog, social media, and e-mail blasts, progressives and other Democrats came to the Americans for Prosperity "public forum" on Medicaid expansion last night at The Loft Cinema. Too bad we couldn't get in.

Approximately 20 pro-healthcare reform advocates, plus six journalism students, and two bloggers were shut out of the tightly controlled forum. In addition, City Councilman Steve Kozachik was "uninvited" to participate in the panel. Although public announcements of the event in the Tucson Weekly, the Arizona Daily Star, and the Pima County GOP website didn't say that reservations were required, the only people who were admitted were those who RSVP'd to the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity e-mail blast, linked to this article.

The only two members of Progressive Democrats of American (PDA) Tucson who were admitted are both doctors. (Of course, they were not wearing PDA Healthcare Not Warfare stickers. None of us holding the banner in front of The Loft or trying to distribute Healthcare Not Warfare stickers got in.)

After the jump, read a first hand account by Dr. Eve Shapiro, head of PDA Tucson's healthcare reform issue organizing team, and more about Koz and job creation with Medicaid expansion.