[Nfbmo] KC Star Weighs in

[Gary Wunder]

I was interviewed briefly this morning. I think this reporter understands
that the House leadership has not fully disclosed both what they know and
what they don't care to know.
 
Gary
 
s ago Missouri House budget is cruel and deceptive
 Barb Shelly Barb Shelly 
The Kansas City Star
Republicans in the Missouri House should be utterly ashamed of the budget
they passed late Tuesday, and the process they used to get there.
The $24 billion spending plan, which requires a final House vote before
going to the Senate, strips $28 million from a health care program used by
2,800 blind Missourians whose income is too high to meet the state's very
low threshold for Medicaid coverage. 
The House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Republican Ryan Silvey of
Kansas City, North, ended the decades-long health care program without
giving recipients the courtesy of a hearing, or bothering to find out who
these people are and why they need health care. Instead, defenders of the
atrocious move throw out red herrings. 
In theory, someone could have a job with a high salary and still qualify for
the health care program, they say. In theory, that's sort of right. All the
state requires is that recipients' assets don't exceed $20,000, and that
they don't have spouses who are sighted and work. 
In reality, though, a blind person with a good-paying job and health
benefits almost certainly isn't drawing from the state health-care program.
The state requires that private insurance be used as the primary source of
care.
And most of the 2,800 recipients aren't so lucky. Missouri's blind
population has a 70 percent unemployment rate. Its health care needs are
expensive and acute. Many of the people on the state's health care plan for
the blind have diabetes. Some need dialysis or expensive organ
anti-rejection medication. Many need medication for glaucoma.
They are in dire need of regular medical care and their chances of being
ensured on the individual market with these expensive pre-existing
conditions are just about zero. Ironically, the same GOP lawmakers who want
to throw blind Missourians over the cliff are the same ones who ceaselessly
oppose "Obamacare," which is the best hope for people with low incomes
and/or pre-existing conditions to gain affordable, market-based health care.
Should the unbelievable occur and the 2,800 blind recipients actually lose
their health care, many would likely find their way to Missouri's high-risk
insurance pool, meaning the state would continue to fund their health care,
but through another channel.
Here's another red herring the Republicans are using: It's unfair to give
the blind a health-care benefit that people with other disabilities don't
get. 
People with disabilities would be the first to tell you that they are a
diverse community, and cannot be lumped into one basket. And the state
responds to their needs in different ways. The developmentally disabled and
severely physically disabled are eligible for Medicaid waivers and services,
for instance. 
I would challenge Silvey, or House Speaker Steve Tilley or any Republican to
tell us who exactly are "the disabled," and explain why it's OK to cut off
aid for people with one incapacitating disability because everyone with
disabilities isn't receiving the same thing.
Silvey says it's necessary to cut aid to the blind because he refuses to cut
any more money from the state's colleges and universities, as Gov. Jay
Nixon's budget recommends. But neither he nor any of the House GOP leaders
have mentioned the obvious: That if you're taking health care from the blind
to fund universities, it's time to look for new sources of revenue.
GOP leaders have in common with the Missourians they would cast into the
cold a lack of vision. The difference is that theirs stems from the head and
heart.