In Addition To Taxing The Poor, Louisiana Will Stop Providing End-Of-Life Care To Low-Income America

[demmiblue]

Source: Think Progress

This week, potential Republican presidential contender Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) rolled out one of the country’s most regressive tax proposals, a plan that would shift Louisiana’s tax burden away from the wealthy by raising taxes on the bottom 80 percent of state residents. Apparently, the “austerity” measures don’t stop there.

According to New Orleans CBS affiliate WWLTV, Louisiana residents over the age of 21 who are on Medicaid — the public insurance program for disabled and poor Americans — will stop receiving hospice care benefits at the end of this month. That means that low-income Louisianans with terminal illnesses, debilitating disabilities, and chronic long-term medical problems will no longer have access to the essential home and medical care that they need.

And while the cuts are intended to help the state balance its budget, critics point out that it is more likely to increase health care costs by pushing previously-insured Americans with costly medical conditions into private hospitals and emergency rooms where they will not be able to afford their treatments:

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/17/1461881/louisiana-medicaid-patients/?mobile=nc

[Bandit]

1. IMO Christianity and Republican ideology are exact polar opposites

How is it possible to be both a Christian and a Republican?

[HereSince1628]

7. Deformation of the most plastic and malleable parts of each.

reality is merely sensible experience hammered into an existing rationale

[Volaris]

20. it requires that at least ONE of those 2 things be practiced in such a radical way

that it will possibly get you killed. It's why no ones tried it in over 30 years.
But, it IS possible, at least theoretically...

[Tagish_Charlie]

25. Simple, it's not possible

[uponit7771]

27. yeap, at the center of conservative ideals is selfishness

[NorthCarolina]

43. The Christianity you speak of is 'Old School' Christianity.

Current day Christianity and Republican ideology have very much in common in that they both worship the almighty $. A unfortunately large percentage of current day Dems fare no better in this regard either.

[GeorgeGist]

59. Keen Gullibility is essential to both.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

64. psychologically, it's called compartmentalization

It's similar to denial....the person cuts off awareness between the various conflicting beliefs and actions. It's so hard to imagine, but I guess it's maybe a little similar to loving animals and also being a meat eater? That's the only framework I can think of that isn't totally alien to my way of thinking.

It goes along with a lot of other cognitive defenses that such people do; projection (accusing others of that which you yourself do/think); rationalization (that one's a little less alien to me).....I'm sure there are other psychogical short circuits that I can't think of right now.

[dsbc]

2. So...

what's the solution? Keep racking up more debt? Or maybe increase the budget of the Audit Office to crack down on cheats like these two, [url=http://www.katc.com/news/two-louisiana-women-charged-with-medicaid-fraud/][size=13pt]Two Louisiana Women Charged with Medicaid Fraud[/size][/url] , which would probably pay for itself in 6 months.

With regard to taxes, all Americans should pay an income tax, however small. Then we can all feel like we have some ownership in this country. And, of course, the rich should pay their fair share...much more than 14%.

[eShirl]

4. Here's the solution: Die Quickly*!

Anything else is apparently an unnecessary burden on the state.


*in the words of DUer Alan Grayson

[Glitterati]

5. WTH makes you think poor Americans don't feel "ownership?"

It appears you turned left when you meant to turn right over at Freerepublic!

That statement is the single most disgusting Romneyism ever created.

Here's a newsflash for you - even poor Americans are part and parcel of the United States of America. Including poor Republicans - and there are MANY.

[abq e streeter]

31. And yet upheld as OK after an alert (probably multiple ones). Unbelievable.

[Glitterati]

37. Yeah, I alerted as well.

Upheld 3-3.

Stunning what kind of right wing BS is allowed here now.

[abq e streeter]

38. I thought this was as slam dunk an alert as I've ever sent. I was stunned to see the post upheld.

Stunned and disgusted.

[Wednesdays]

44. I've been lobbying hard for jury reform

My proposal has been to grant jury privileges only to those who have been here a year and have 1000 posts. I hope you'll support that and similar proposals over at the meta forum.

[siligut]

45. Jury results

Seems jurors wanted to give the benefit of the doubt.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

Troll wanting "fair" tax of the very poor.
I'm certain if it isn't banned here, it'll be banned by the end of the day.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Fri Jan 18, 2013, 07:54 AM, and the Jury voted 3-3 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: I have to agree with the person who alerted on this. Hide it
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Fair taxes? Maybe not the most progressive opinion in the world, but definitely not an evil thought. The trend of calling every newbie a troll should stop. Time will tell if they are trolling.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: OK, just not sure if it is a troll or just an uninformed idealist, leaving it for MIRT to decide.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[demmiblue]

54. Skinner got him!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=299800&sub=trans

[abq e streeter]

58. yeah,I thought this was blatantly obvious, and yet 3 of 6 thought the post was OK.

No big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it sure doesn't speak well of the jury system that half the DUers selected thought it was just fine and dandy.

[Lars39]

10. Cutting funds from dying people is ok with you?

Your example is a drop in the bucket compared to corporate fraud.

[PA Democrat]

15. If you focus solely on income taxes and ignore all of the other very REGRESSIVE taxes

that disproportionately hit the poor, you are part of the problem. You need to look at how the poor pay a MUCH larger percentage of their income in all types of taxes and stop focusing solely on income taxes like the right wing wants you to do.

Louisiana had a very regressive model of taxation BEFORE these proposed changes which will worsen their plight further.


Breakdown of Louisiana taxes by income bracket:
http://www.itepnet.org/wp2009/la_whopays_factsheet.pdf

[olegramps]

23. So you want to tax people who have nothing left to tax.

What makes you think that the poor people don't pay taxes. The amount of local, state and federal taxes that the poor pay are far greater portion of their earning than anyone in the middle or upper economic brackets.

[JustAnotherGen]

28. Wow

You are off to a great fabulous start at DU!


Yes - ALL Americans should pay an 'income' tax - IF they have an income.

So you say - tax the wealthy . . . what if the wealthiest don't have income tax? They have interest income. Or - are they special?

Honestly - people who write and think like Jindal ought to be ashamed of themselves. Have you ever watched a relative die FIRST hand? August of 2011 I got the displeasure of being with my dad in his final days - at home. . .


I'm glad you and Jindal aren't beating up the V.A. and can't get your mitts on that - because they made DAMN sure my dad had the best hospice care possible for someone who requested to die at home.

In your world? Jindal's? F*ck you Mr. Dad of justanothergen. Too bad, so sad, you lose, it's funny, you should have been a billionaire - being a millionaire made you a worthless dreg of society. Just die quickly because you are probably just another black person stealing welfare.


When is enough enough with the Republicans? I hope you stick around long enough to give us some insight into the Republican mind.

[Jackpine Radical]

29. Oh, I agree entirely. This plan is genius.

The way to end an undesirable activity is to tax the living shit out of it. Like when you increase taxes on cigarettes & the rate of smoking goes down.

Jindal has figured out that the way to eliminate poverty is to tax it so heavily that nobody can afford to be poor.

[lark]

41. single payer is the answer

It's just not one the Repugs like because it decreases the profits of the insurance companies. That's their real aim, the rich pay nothing and the poor die quickly. Unfortunately, they are putting the cost of the poor dying on the populace, so it's a net loser. As usual, Repugs just increase deficits when costs are shifted to people who can't pay. Idiots!

[JDPriestly]

47. Louisiana could impose higher taxes on oil including offshore oil and pay a lot of bills that way.

Louisiana could accept help from the federal government. Are they too proud to do that? Pride cometh before a fall.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Louisiana is adopting this mean tax policy to punish people of color. Remembering the South I lived in when I was young, this would not surprise me. A state mean enough to have Jim Crow race policies is mean enough to put some other policy in place just to torment "them," meaning people of color.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

3. The message here? If you're poor and sick, DROP DEAD. n/t

[Glitterati]

6. Alan Grayson's meme come to life

"Die quickly."

[peace frog]

21. .. and they need to hurry death along already

so as not to take up any more of the elite's resources than absolutely necessary in order to die quickly.

Next Up: Put grandma on an ice floe out to sea, or abandon her in the desert, just get it over quickly already!

[JustAnotherGen]

30. I wouldn't be surprised

I'm beginning to think these folks are missing something - that something that makes us human . . . it's called empathy.

[ananda]

8. Geez, LA is a mean state.

And not alone among the states with red houses.

[Heather MC]

9. So this is the death panels Rethuglicans warned us about

[eShirl]

11. Let me guess: those in favor of this also consider themselves "pro- life."

Bobby, what would Jesus think?

[bluestate10]

65. Stunning isn't it? Pro-life people also overwhelmingly support the death penalty. The children that

they insist be born could become the criminals that they insist be executed. I pray that the many good people in red states get control of those states asap, because those states will go to hell if that assumption of control doesn't happen.

[gollygee]

12. I wonder what the so-called "right-to-lifers" have to say about this

They're probably fine with it.

[Flashmann]

18. They're probably fine with it.

Of course they are......Right to life stops the instant you are born,unless you're born holding a silver spoon........Or a gun permit....

[mac56]

19. They love the babies until they're born.

[SummerSnow]

33. They have a fetus fetish.

[Zoeisright]

50. They do NOT love the fetus.

If they did, they would not cut funding for fetal health research and prenatal care. All those anti-choice bastards do is hate. They hate women. Period.

[hobbit709]

13. Louisiana-trying hard to make TX look good.

[marble falls]

14. It's official: Jindal running for the GOP nomination for King of Teabillystan.....

Not only 'fiscally conservative', but just plain old freaking cold blooded and heartless.

[CE5]

16. AMERICA!!! Fuck you! I've got mine!

USA! USA! USA!

[sybylla]

17. Life in the Bible Belt, where WWJD is just something you wear on a bracelet.

n/t

[atreides1]

22. A new "Final Solution"

What a concept!

[Cynicus Emeritus]

24. Tax cuts and bail out for rich Wall Streeters and foreign aid

to countries that do not need it, absurd wars for nothing, and we allow the American poor to die in the streets.

This is the result of a government fully owned and operated by the mega rich, and being "served" by too many politicians whose sole concern is getting re-elected and continuing on with their personal gravy train.


Progressive, Populist, Libertarian supporting rights of the people.

[sinkingfeeling]

26. There's your 'death panel' for you.

[SummerSnow]

32. psst...pssst....can you say Death Panels?....

Republicans love to use that phrase "death panels"..Watch other Red States follow suit. I predict a mass Exodus of Red State conservatives moving to blue states.

[Oilwellian]

34. The logic escapes me

Isn't Hospice Care cheaper for the state?

My husband's ex and her family own a Hospice Care business in Louisiana and they are rabid right wingers. I wonder how they will take this right wing solution.

[Glitterati]

40. No, hospice care isn't cheaper

When you simply refuse to pay for it at all.

See how that works? If someone who needs hospice care has no alternative, they make multiple trips to the ER while they die. Those bills go to the heirs, not the state.

I live in right wing hell. Every day, actually every night, the ambulance and fire truck make a run into the subdivision. For a person who needs hospice the family can't pay for.

Every. single. night.

They pass my house on the way in and that fire truck is noisy, noisy, noisy at 3AM. Volunteer fire department and paid ambulance service.

What do you think that costs every day? The ambulance service charges by the mile. Isn't that sweet?

When I called the ambulance for my husband having a heart attack, it cost $349.00 - 2.7 miles.

[geardaddy]

35. FU Piyush.

[Politicub]

36. What a ghoul. How horrible.

Republicans are on the march to strip away all dignity from the poor and disabled. Despicable

[exboyfil]

39. My dad fortunately signed up for

his company's health insurance when he turned 60 and retired. He promptly got cancer and spent six years fighting it (the last year under Medicare). Even then he and my mom went through nearly $200K of his IRA (mostly trips back and forth to Houston).

He was in hospice care in Lousiana at the end. I was thankful for the support that Hospice gave my mom. He was able to die in the living room of his house with a picture window looking out to his pride and joy - his garden.

Medicare covers Hospice but many people in Hospice do not qualify for Medicare, and, if they are destitute, come under Medicaid. It does not seem unreasonable to let those people die in more comfortable surroundings than a sterile hospital room.

[arthritisR_US]

42. So Bobby's creating his own death panel...hmmm

[exboyfil]

46. My grandma is Title 19 in a nursing home

in Iowa. I was specifically asked by the nursing home to sign her up for hospice care when it looked like her medical condition was worsening. They explained that they were not staffed to offer the additional care for my grandmother. What Jindal is basically saying is that the Hospice care will be a free rider along with the standard Title 19 coverage which is not true. Either the care for the patients will decrease or the nursing home will be forced to eat the extra expenses associated with such care.

[JDPriestly]

48. I'm sorry your grandmother is so ill. But what does this mean?

What Jindal is basically saying is that the Hospice care will be a free rider along with the standard Title 19 coverage which is not true.

How does that Title 19 coverage work? What is Title 19?

[exboyfil]

52. Title 19 is Medicaid

Part of Jindal's justification is those on Medicaid will get Hospice like care through the nursing home. What happens is that those eligible like my grandmother for Medicaid who also need Hospice care use Medicare benefits to obtain it.

If you are under 65 and not in the Medicare system, then I guess Medicaid in Louisiana was picking up Hospice prior to Jindal's change. They will no longer do this under Jindal. The actual facts of my grandmother's experience destroys one of Jindal's arguments. The nursing homes are not equiped to provide Hospice care as well (at least not how my grandma's nursing home is structured). They already ask alot of the CNAs, many of whom get verbally absued by the patients, and don't pay them that much. I am not entirely sure that their drug dispensing nurses are able to issue all the painkillers associated with end of life. i know Hospice provides counseling and "comfort" therapy as well. Things CNAs with their many patients are unable to do. My grandmother benefitted greatly from my services (as did my dad who died in Louisiana from cancer but he was in his home under private insurance and then Medicare).

[JDPriestly]

53. Thanks for explaining.

[Zoeisright]

49. Fuck you, Bobby Brady

I wish there was a hell so this piece of shit would burn in it. He wins as the most disgusting repuke ever. And that's quite an honor.

[kickysnana]

51. xpost "In southern India, relatives sometimes quietly kill their elders"

From Good Reads earlier this week:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-india-mercy-killings-20130116,0,4344946.story

n southern India, relatives sometimes quietly kill their elders
The practice often begins with an oil bath. In some cases, the parent is sick and in pain. In others, experts say, relatives want to gain control of the estate.
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

INNAMREDIYARPATTI, India — Michael headed for work at a textile mill, leaving his wife, children and infirm mother at home in this impoverished part of southern India. When he returned a few hours later, his mother's body was propped up in a chair surrounded by villagers and decorated with flowers, poisoned by his wife with a potion in a local form of mercy killing known as thalaikoothal.

Three decades later, he harbors no ill will toward his wife. "My mother had been sick and in pain for 20 days and wasn't eating properly," said Michael, 62, who like many southern Indians uses one name. "I was thinking of doing it myself. It was time, and there wasn't enough food to go around."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101653287

[lovuian]

55. ER's in Louisiana are going to be very long waits

this man needs to be kicked out of office

[Mnemosyne]

56. So they want people to die, but not to make them as comfortable as possible while doing it. nt

[etherealtruth]

60. NOT "people" ... "poor people"!

If they deserved compassionate end of life care they wouldn't be poor

Anyone that could support this is inherently evil

[Mnemosyne]

61. Excellent point, ethereal. Much of my family is like that. Evil as a description works for me.

"I don't feel sorry for them, (after Katrina), they knew there could be bad hurricanes there and should have moved." Out of one sister's mouth, and most of them are just like that, no empathy or compassion for anyone that isn't like them.

[ck4829]

57. Just let them wander into the forest, eh GOP?

[BlancheSplanchnik]

62. evil goes hand in hand with stupidity, greed and resentment

And right now I am so disgusted and so enraged at that ebola virus Jindal.....I cannot say what that SCUMBAG deserves or I'd get banned.

[bluestate10]

63. Man. What do red state leaders think with?

It all symbolism and reaction for them. They don't think of the consequences of their actions. Yet, idiots keep electing and re-electing mostly morons to lead them.

[eridani]

66. Republican death panels for sure n/t

[Dirty Socialist]

67. Beat me by 19 minutes