Ron Casanova
Artists for A Better America
New York, NY
Medicaid Cuts equals certain death.
In the 2005-2006 testimony submitted by Gov. Pataki, he wants $3 billion cut from Medicaid. These cuts will affect over 3 million New Yorkers.
19 million or more New Yorkers, family, men, women and children, use Medicaid for prescription drugs, family planning services, home care and mental health therapies. His budget in present plan will kill at least 3 million or more New Yorkers.
We ask the Governor, First and foremost, "Do No Harm!"
Cuts to Family Health Plus (FHP) include the elimination of dental, vision, home care and mental benefits and reductions in FHP eligibility will limit care for low-income families and provide inadequate health care for our neediest.
“The cuts to Medicaid tell me that the government would prefer me to die”
The Governor's plan would delay coverage and cares for families by ending community-based facilitated enrollment which means unaffordable co-payments for FHP services.
We must reject changes to FHP:
. Not reduce FHP eligibility for New Yorkers. And maintain funding for facilitated enrollment.
. Do not make co-payment for Early Intervention Program.
. Reverse last year's budget changes children's Medicaid eligibility and imposed an assets for FHP.
. Oppose changes to long-term care eligibility, that will leave poor families destitute and create walls to getting home and community based services, resulting in more institutionalization.
. Ensure voluntary Medicaid managed care programs, i.e. SSI & Medicare have the capacity to serve the people and enrollees care will be maintained or improve with transition to managed care.
The Governor plans cuts to the safety net health care providers which serve the community and the poor. Even without money some providers are our main connection to primary care, for immigrants, homeless, poor and children.
So I conclude:
Medicaid cuts are a threat to all of us, not just New Yorkers, Washington, Philadelphia and (as I see it) all cities throughout the U.S.A.
Thousands of my peers in New York who have HIV/AIDS will die without the financial support we get from Medicaid. How would we be able to afford our medications, I take over 30 pills a day and would be dead on the streets of New York.
If we think Katrina was and is bad, think about the streets of New York, littered with bodies of people dying because we could not afford our medications.
I am also a diabetic and take 2 shots of insulin twice a day. The cuts to Medicaid tell me that the government would prefer me to die.
We need the Truth Commissions' help, help us defeat an proposed Medicaid cuts or any cuts that destroy the safety net of all of us, homeless, poor, women & children.
Join our voices in our cry to stop any cut to Medicaid or the rest of our much needed services.
Thank You.