In the United States, if you have, or care for someone with
Parkinson's or the parkinsonian family of ailments, the following
Editorial in the San Francisco Examiner may stir you to action. My
comments follow the article. Substitute the word Alzheimer's with
Parkinson's dementia.
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Medicaid 'reform' will convert nursing homes into snake pits
CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS
Examiner's Washington bureau chief
Sun, Oct. 8, 1995
POLITICS doesn't always involve an in-your-face moral dilemma.
I can think of many recent fights - NAFTA is one - where the
issue had to be decided roughly, with weightier questions of social
equity left for history to adjudicate. Some political questions
require, however, an immediate reckoning of what we value, want
kind of a country we want to be. Among them, I submit to you, is
the move on Capitol Hill to slash the Medicaid protections of the
millions of older Americans who can no longer provide for their
well-being. Today, a husband who cannot afford an expensive
nursing home for his Alzheimer's-afflicted spouse can receive
Medicaid assistance, subject to certain tough conditions. He must
"spend down" his assets to an extremely modest level and contribute
enough of his monthly income to bring that down to a required level
as well. He is permitted to keep his residence and his car. The
proposal being rammed through the House of Representatives would
impose an even more onerous regimen. To provide for a demented
spouse, a husband could be forced to forfeit everything. To keep
his wife in a decent home, he could no longer be secure in his
own. If a state like California wanted to confiscate his house to
meet a budget shortfall, there would be nothing standing in its
way. The Medicaid legislation that cleared the Commerce Committee
in the House last week does other damage to the compact we share
with older Americans. It eliminates the minimal human standards that
now govern the country's nursing homes, standards enacted by
both parties in 1987 and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.
If the current bill clears Congress, it would take us back to the
Snake Pit: rows of patients living in drug-induced delirium,
the physical abuse, the forlorn, ragtag hospital wings without so
much as a fire door. The one hope that these Dickensian "reforms"
will not come to pass is the growing uproar from voters, Republican
and Democrat alike. People of every political philosophy are starting
to wonder why a country as advanced and optimistic as ours should
accept new budget policies that (1) procure B-2 Stealth bombers and
Seawolf nuclear submarines for no strategic purpose whatever and (2)
demolish the health protections of the very generations whose endurance
and patriotism won the Cold War victory that makes such weapons
unnecessary. Here is one case where the public opinion polls may
do more than entertain the pundits and political watchers. They may
actually save the day. According to a new ABC survey, a powerful 65
percent of the American people disapprove of what Congress is doing.
They are reacting to the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid with the same
vehemence being shown against the O.J. verdict. By 2 to 1, people say
that we did not spend a half century and trillions of dollars defeating
communism so that we could deprive the victors their dignity
as well as their livelihood. I believe that people who worked and paid
taxes all their lives deserve to be treated better. I believe that
spouses of Alzheimer's victims - spouses such as Nancy Reagan -
should be applauded for their valiant caregiving. I believe that
those with fewer resources need the Medicaid protection that her
husband helped, in his time, to guarantee.
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Think About It!
Some of the same folks we contacted to provide more funding
for 'Finding the Cure' support increasing the 'homelessness' by
forcing those who rely on Medicare or Medicaid to forfeit their
spouse's home and car.
Does it matter that we can't get long term medical coverage at any cost?
In our, "I got mine, too bad that you didn't get yours" world, pulling
the safety net out from under 'care-givers' and 'families in the home'
is to much.
Folks, unless those at risk, rise up and protest this travesty in the
guise of 'balancing the budget', we can kiss goodbye everything that we
have worked for and contributed to mankind. Every congress person must
hear our voice...NOW! This is not something to aquiesce on, "Soylent
Green" is closer than you think!
Some cultures send the frail and infirm on a journey....Is this where
civilized peoples are heading?...To balance the budget?
Rally your support groups, call and write your congress person regardless
of their policics and tell them; Decent people want this STOPPED!...NOW!
John Cottingham "The parkinsn list brings Knowledge, Comfort,
Hope, and Friendship to the parkinsonian world."
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