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Jesse's Journal
In order to balance the budget and please their supporters, Bush and Byrd are wreaking havoc with the safety net that has protected Floridians for decades. One of the victims of JEB's budget is Florida's Medically Needy Share of Cost Program, a program that provides healthcare and medications to people who are on Social Security Disability but who do not qualify for full Medicaid coverage. It helps transplant recipients as well as people who suffer from catastrophic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS. Though the program costs $368 million per year the federal government picks up 2/3 of the bill. During his first term, Jeb Bush tried his best to eliminate the Medically Needy program. This year he just left it out of his 2003-2004 budget. As things now stand, assistance for most people currently covered by the program is due to end on June 30. As Mete Calder, JEB's policy coordinator for health and human services, told a concerned citizen, the program will be limited to children up to the age of18 and pregnant women. For the rest, the Bush budget promises to expand the "Silver Saver Program" to include "elderly and disabled persons whose out-of-pocket prescribed drug expenses reduce their income level to 120 percent of the federal poverty level". Calder noted that Florida has to make "some tough choices" in order to continue providing services and that the Medically Needy program is "an optional program" under Medicaid. Advocates for the sick, especially those whose lives depend on the Medically Needy program, are outraged. They were quick to note that the only states who are trying to eliminate this program are Florida and Texas, the "Bush States". "This year may turn out to be the budget year of slash and burn," wrote Rosemary Gallagher, a retired social service activist, for the Florida Forum. "So many valuable state programs are now endangered." Gallagher worries that "the lifeblood of the Medicaid Medically Needy Program is being drained, totally eliminating parts of it and the rest eviscerated by new eligibility rules. . . I am losing sleep over a program that for 19 years has provided critical life-saving medical care to thousands of elderly and disabled Floridians," she wrote. "Turning away federal dollars needed now for critical care for this growing number of uninsured is fiscally irresponsible." Meanwhile, Ms. Vicky Keller - a true friend of our community long before Judy Shepard and Betty DeGeneres made it fashionable - launched a massive letter-writing campaign on behalf of the endangered Medically Needy Program. Health care advocates gathered in Tallahassee to lobby the State Legislature and literally plead for their lives and those of their loved ones. Not even the Florida Legislature could ignore such grassroots activism, and the State House quickly introduced a bill that would provide $291.4 million for the Medically Needy Share of Cost Program. Unfortunately for the chronically ill, the Medically Needy program joined other State programs in the current budget crossfire between the Florida Senate one side and the Florida House (and Governor) on the other. Led by Senate President Jim King (R-Jacksonville), the Senate proposed to eliminate all funding for the program. "I don't sleep well with this stuff," admits Senator King, "there might be some people who die. . . . But if I get no more money to spend, I'd rather pass this than anything the House is working on." So far, the State Senate's attempt to shock JEB and the State House into approving more taxes doesn't seem to work. And meanwhile our friends' lives hang in the balance. In a democracy, the citizens get the government they deserve. Floridians have only ourselves to blame for electing a Governor and a Legislature that literally take from the poor in order to give to the rich. But this does not absolve the Governor or his legislators from their responsibility to serve the needs of their constituents. Even Senate Rules Chairman Tom Lee, (R-Brandon), admits that the Senate's move "makes it hard for us to say we're compassionate conservatives." Like other endangered programs that help the needy, the Medically Needy Share of Cost Program must be restored to its former funding. "The people that get these services are fed up," said Mary Ellen Ross, the Chairman of the Florida Transplant Survivors Coalition. "They've been bounced around by the Legislature for a couple of years now, mostly to make a political point. . . . Why are you playing political Russian roulette with such an important program?"
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Since Gov. Jeb Bush took office in 1999, corporations and the wealthy have benefited at the hands of the sick and poor 
Jesse Monteagudo is a Florida-based author and activist who loves
this State in spite of its leaders. You can pan or praise him at