Last week I wrote this letter to the Editors of the Boston Globe concerning the importance of Medicaid. Today it was printed:
To the Editors:
THANK YOU for the strong message about the dangers of turning Medicaid over to states and block grants ( “Medicaid has a problem, but block grants won’t solve it,’’ Editorial, Nov. 25). The Republican sound bites about the waste in the Medicaid system are often based on political motives, not fact.
As the mother of a young adult with autism, I depend on Medicaid to fund my son’s day program. I would invite any political candidate to visit one the state’s programs and look at what they do on spare budgets. Look at the remarkable ingenuity of programs that provide entire crews of unpaid volunteers to work for valuable businesses like Meals on Wheels.
Anecdotes on waste should not indict an entire support system. Nor should quality vary so much between states, as it would under the block grant proposals. Though far from perfect, Medicaid is the only thing standing between so many disabled people and a wasted life in aging parents’ homes – or even a life on the streets.
Last week I wrote this letter to the Editors of the Boston Globe concerning the importance of Medicaid. Today it was printed:
To the Editors:
THANK YOU for the strong message about the dangers of turning Medicaid over to states and block grants ( “Medicaid has a problem, but block grants won’t solve it,’’ Editorial, Nov. 25). The Republican sound bites about the waste in the Medicaid system are often based on political motives, not fact.
As the mother of a young adult with autism, I depend on Medicaid to fund my son’s day program. I would invite any political candidate to visit one the state’s programs and look at what they do on spare budgets. Look at the remarkable ingenuity of programs that provide entire crews of unpaid volunteers to work for valuable businesses like Meals on Wheels.
Anecdotes on waste should not indict an entire support system. Nor should quality vary so much between states, as it would under the block grant proposals. Though far from perfect, Medicaid is the only thing standing between so many disabled people and a wasted life in aging parents’ homes – or even a life on the streets.
Susan Senator