Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Disablism; class warfare.]

"They wanted to cut my full-time care hours by 76 percent, which all three of my doctors said was totally unrealistic. Essentially, they wanted three out of every four hours to go away. ...I don't want to use hyperbole, but a lot of people die when these policies get implemented."—Finn Bullers, a disability rights advocate in Kansas who has "muscular dystrophy, uses a wheelchair, has type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes, and requires a ventilator in his throat to breathe," on the loss of life-sustaining services for people with disabilities, following Republican Governor Sam Brownback's privatization of Medicaid.

Since Brownback's inauguration, 1,414 Kansans with disabilities have been forced off of the Medicaid physical disability (PD) waiver. In January of 2013, Brownback became the first governor to fully privatize Medicaid services, claiming he would save the state $1 billion in 5 years without having to cut services, eligibility, or provider payments.

Now, under Brownback's "KanCare," PD waiver cases are handled by for-profit, out-of-state, Fortune 500, publicly-traded managed care services. Kansas has contracts with three managed care profiteers — United Healthcare, Sunflower State Health Plan (owned by Centene Corporation), and AmeriGroup. Amerigroup and Centene each gave $2,000, Kansas' maximum allowed contribution, to Brownback's re-election campaign.

This is one among many reasons that healthcare should and must be treated as a basic human right, to which every US citizen should have access. Healthcare should not be a privilege.