The push to rip the safety net

Astonishingly, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Republicans are pressing ahead with proposals to cut between $35 and $50 billion from crucial safety net programs including Medicaid, Section 8 housing, and food stamps while proposing huge tax cuts of about $70 billion for the rich. They are opposing a bipartisan $8.9 billion Disaster Relief Medicaid bill that would provide 100 percent federal funding for emergency health and mental health care for Katrina victims wherever they are. The Grassley-Baucus bill would also cut through the 50 states' red tape with varying eligibility requirements and just help suffering people now.On September 24, 2001, just 13 days after our September 11th national
disaster, emergency Medicaid assistance was up and running in New York. Katrina victims deserve no less. Yet, over seven weeks after Katrina destroyed the homes, schools, child care centers, jobs, medical records, and charity hospitals relied on by millions of people living in three of the poorest states in America - Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama - President Bush, Senator Frist and other Republicans in Congress are blocking the bipartisan effort to get urgently needed health, mental health and other emergency supports to Katrina victims.

Why, after the colossal bungling, preventable loss of life and preventable suffering resulting from incompetent FEMA evacuation and relief efforts, which still persist, and why after the president's correct and compassionate words about the need to address poverty at the prayer service for Katrina victims at Washington National Cathedral, is he continuing to leave poor children, families, seniors, and single people who desperately need health care behind?

His administration and congressional allies claim they are taking care of the health and mental health needs of Katrina victims by giving some individual states Medicaid waivers. But this is a farce. They've given Medicaid waivers without a new dime to help fiscally strapped states meet the new demands of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the storm.

Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, is turning down many people who apply because they don't fit current Medicaid eligibility requirements or are not responding promptly to people who do. Louisiana, the second poorest state in the nation, did not even bother to apply for a waiver because they don't have any money to meet the match and, like all the other states with Katrina evacuees, don't want to accept thousands of new Medicaid applications for which they will be left holding the financial bag without 100 percent federal funding assistance.

All of this is why Senators Grassley and Baucus introduced such a crucial emergency bill (S.1716) and tried at least twice to move it quickly with unanimous consent through the Senate. It would get help to people. The governors support Grassley-Baucus. The hospitals and medical associations support it, African American and faith leaders support it, child and family advocates support it, but the president, Senator Frist and House Republican leaders are blocking it.

A handful of Senators, House members and the Bush administration who are opposing the $8.9 billion emergency Medicaid bill for Katrina victims call it a budget buster and deficit increaser while supporting massive tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that cost over 8 times more! And some leaders are still trying to impose deep cuts in safety net programs like Medicaid and Section 8 housing - programs desperately needed by Katrina and others who are our most vulnerable citizens. What hypocrites!

Who's left suffering while the president and Congress play political budget politics? People like the elderly heart patients who are no longer able to be served at a charity hospital that has closed; the single adults who aren't eligible for Medicaid; and the countless people suffering from post traumatic stress disorders.

I hope we will not tolerate this callous disregard by our president, Senate and House leaders a day longer. I hope you will call Senator Frist and Speaker Hastert toll free at 888-CDF-1221 and tell them to stop blocking help for Katrina victims and call President Bush and tell him the same at 888-737-9612. Tell them to enact the Grassley-Baucus Emergency Health Care Relief Act of 2005 (S.1716) this week and not to bog it down, water it down, or delay it many more weeks as part of a partisan, complicated budget process.

Children are suffering today. Their country ought to respond.
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Marian Wright Edelman is CEO and founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose mission is to Leave No Child Behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.