Everything you need to know about the potential Republican effort to opt out of Medicaid can be taken from this quote:
“If people are in superbad poverty, that’s one thing,” says state Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, the state’s most vocal supporter of dropping out of Medicaid and a candidate for speaker of the House. “It breaks my heart when there’s someone who smokes, and who stays drunk half the time, and we’re supposed to provide their health care.”
The question is not whether you can afford health care, the question is whether or not you deserve health care. If Warren Chisum and his ideological soulmates don’t approve of how you live, then you’re just SOL. One wonders what else one must do or not do to pass muster with Chisum. Are you too fat? Don’t eat your vegetables? Don’t get enough exercise? Watch too much TV? No health care for you! I just wonder how many of Chisum’s colleagues in the Lege would measure up.
For a guy whose party claims it wants to get out of people’s lives, that sure is some impressive nanny stating. As blaming the victim is a lot easier than trying to help him or her, which they clearly don’t want to do, you can be sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the coming months. I’ll say it again, if we Democrats can’t make the Republicans own every bit of this, we need to really take a hard look at just what the hell it is we’re doing.
Finally, I can’t let this go without marveling at how spectacularly un-Christian Chisum’s attitude is. Here’s a guy who’s built a career on pushing legislation that’s anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-divorce because of his proclaimed moral beliefs. I challenge you to find any aspect of Jesus’ teachings that is consistent with the idea that only those who are free of sin are deserving of help. If this is what it means to be “moral”, then I’ll take my chances with depravity.
“Love thy neighbor…unless they do something you just don’t like.” Yeah.
In FY07, about 2/3 of TX Medicaid dollars are for the aged/disabled, a bit over a quarter for kids, and about 8 percent for pregnant women and non-disabled adults. Which of those groups is he saying it breaks his heart to cover?
Maybe he thinks we shouldn’t cover tobacco cessation and substance abuse treatment services. Helping pregnant women quit smoking and using alcohol/drugs helps improve health outcomes for them and their babies. Substance abuse if often co-occurring with mental illness, and you can’t treat one condition in isolation from the other.
Since when is morality judged by spending other people’s money. That is the problem with liberals and socialists, they somehow see taking someone else’s money by force ( taxes), and giving it to another person (welfare) is some how moral. It may be a necessary evil but moral it is not. You can’t get to heaven by spending other peoples money. If you think a person needs money then give them your money voluntarily. That would be a moral good.
RR – I’m judging Chisum’s morality by his words and his attitude. The power he wields over how government spends its money is the manifestation of that. And again, Chisum is perfectly happy to use government to impose his view of morality in other areas. I’m just applying that standard consistently.
That is the problem with liberals and socialists, they somehow see taking someone else’s money by force ( taxes), and giving it to another person (welfare) is some how moral.
Taxes are not taken by force. Taxes are a fee for making money from the US economy, just like your power bill is a fee for having the electricity on. People who don’t make money from the US economoy are not taxed, just like people who don’t get electricity in their houses don’t pay a power bill. You have every right to expatriate and make your money in another economy, and the US will leave you alone, just like you have every right to stop paying your power bill and have your electricity shut off, and the power company will leave you alone. And, it is moral to use some of those fees to provide extremely basic support for those struggling in the US economy.
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