Brewer and the AZ legislature have their gov't hands on Medicaid...

[Erose999]

http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/54828a5e8d9d48b7ba8b94ba38a9ef22/Article_2011-01-21-Medicaid%20Waiver/id-b11f3527302e48459bb8b963ab4c5891

PHOENIX (AP) — Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer signed an emergency bill Friday allowing the cash-short state to seek a federal waiver to temporarily remove nearly 300,000 people from its Medicaid rolls in the first such request by a state.

If granted by the administration of President Barack Obama, the waiver would let the state scale back coverage to near that of most other states and save $541.5 million, making it the single biggest element in Brewer's plan to eliminate a projected $1.1 billion shortfall in the next state budget.

Brewer said Medicaid's explosive growth is unsustainable and threatens to consume the core functions of state government. < /ap >

If they can opt to cut Medicaid, can they not also opt to cut Medicare? Where are those teabaggers who were shouting "Get your gov't hands off my Medicare" this past summer now?

[Swamp Rat]

1. America's future: Rule by Fiat when the corpofascists don't get their way.

Think that's far fetched?

Wait, watch, and weep.

[madrchsod]

2. Arizona is a third world country.....

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. Medicaid..

...is run by the state involved, with federal matching funds, and some federal regulation of what is to provided, and to whom. State participation is optional, and Arizona was the last state to opt in, in 1981, iirc.

Medicare is federal all the way.

[Erose999]

5. Thanks for the info. Its just apalling that AZ would take away so many people's healthcare at the

drop of a hat. And that those people who lost their benefits would probably still be taxed for medicare as well.

[butterfly77]

4. ...