Illinois pols say they made bold tough decisions--AGAINST poor kids, the disabled and SENIOR CITIZENS

Well well well...the Illinois general assembly, along with the gov, say they made "bold, tough" decisions by attacking the disabled and senior citizens...ok, they don't say the attack part, but they'd be more honest.
In this last session, they've ended IllinoisCareRX, cut medicaid, attacked State retirees health insurance and are  aiming for my pension next. They would already have it, but the democrats and republicans got into a hissy match and stomped out of session before they could snatch away parts of our pension.
Now, the assembly is just so sorry about making gramma having to choose between electricity and medication, but decisions must be made for the GREATER good...psst...Mr. Cullerton? Madigan? Cross? Rodagno? When you say that? Please realize that I'm NOT THAT STUPID!!!
I guess I could think that all of you are that stupid...or that greedy...ok, greedy over stupid, but did you even pay attention to what you were doing? Do you know what the ramifications are of your actions?
First, Medicaid "reform" or middle class/senior destruction. The changes in Medicaid* which were touted as much needed include:

• Ending the IllinoisCareRX program -- drops drug coverage for 180,000 senior citizens. Yes, ObamaCare does help some of these citizens since ObamaCare gets rid of the doughnut hole, but the doughnut hole isn't gone until 2020 and the people that used this program had already had an income of under $19,000 per year; saves $72,000
• Family Care for Adults --  reduce eligibility to those adults with covered kids to 133% of poverty level and eliminates care for caretakers/adults. This affects about 26,000 citizens...this affects the working poor/lower middle class. We are taking away the ability of parents to get health insurance from the state...when their employer(and yes, I'm calling out mallwart, homedespot and other big box stores) doesn't offer affordable insurance without caveats; saves $50,000.
• Eliminate adult dental, chiropractic, podiatry, group psychotherapy...there is "emergency" adult dental, but does that cover a tooth that needs a root canal and is painful?  I know I missed a couple of days because of that--and I was lucky, I had a union to back me; saves $56,000.
• Limit adult optical(every other year), occupational/physical therapy to 20 visits per year--the optical is not my issue, but the PT? the OT? When I had my knee surgery, it took more than 20 visits before I was OK...now, think about someone who has a stroke? Only 20 visits? That's deplorable; saves $18,000. 
• Adopt policy to not pay for other care services when citizen is in hospice...this one hit home. Last year my mother was sent from a nursing home to the hospital(due to an infection) to hospice and then, after less than a week, we were told she was to go back to the nursing home(and she's still alive)...if medicaid hadn't paid for her bed, we would have had to scramble to find another one; saves $3,000
• *****Reduce home health services; saves $2,000 and how many people will have to go into nursing homes if they can't get home health care???? And how much more will that cost????
• Limit medication to 4 perscriptions per month(need prior approval for more); saves $180,000...hmm...ok, I understand that some people shop doctors, shop 'scripts...BUT...on the other hand...a person has asthma--2 'scripts(an inhaler and a "stableizer") hypertension(one for blood pressure and usually one diauretic) and oh...lung issues, heart issues, HRT, anxiety, depression, other mental health issues, diabetes!!!! People on Medicaid don't go to the doctor until they absolutely have to, which usually means more care is needed, not less.
• Cuts to Hospice support
• Changing asset verification for spouses...I'd love to agree on this one, but I am sure that the only ones that will be caught in this net are the ones not rich enough to hire good attorneys...if you think I'm just blowing smoke, I know people in my area that brag about how they've already hid their parents assets...10 years before there's an issue!
• Cuts to Nursing home Care, so...after the state cuts home health care(see **** bullet point), the state is cutting nursing home care?!?!?!?!?!
• Reduce advance imaging, cardiac imaging, pain management, back surgery(some of it dealing with managed care/care coordination); saves approximately $20,000. Again, part of this I agree with...too many doctors will push up the bill by adding more tests, but on the other hand, Illinois has cut chiropractic care and now wants to limit back surgery???
• Denying pediatric palliative care. For those who don't want to hit the link, Pediatric Palliative care is for children that are either terminal or chronically ill.
• Reduce some provider rates by 2.7%; saves $240,000--this does not include doctors...but...it doesn't spell out, in laymen(citizen) terms, who this will affect.

But, other issues were not addressed, how about actual bold/brave decisions such as:
Make corporations pay their fair share! Two Thirds of Illinois corporations pay no state income tax! But the only thing I ever hear on the tv is how high Illinois' tax rate is and its running corporations out of the state! So, they're trying to find a state that will pay THEM????? Can we just say the truth-they're greedy bastards. One very good post by Curtis Black(Truth Out) brings up some very good points about how horrifically biased Illinois tax structure is towards wealthy/corporations. Although Illinois has a so-called flat tax which is regressive by nature, we've also grabbed a bunch of loopholes/deductions from the federal tax code that benefits the upper class more so than middle or lower.
Raise revenue by:

• Getting rid of the Single Sales Factor There is a very good explanation of this procedure on page 4 & 5 of the Closing Corporate Loopholes,Bolstering Illinois Budget by the Good Jobs First organization 
• Getting rid of certain deduction which allow for dividend paid by foreign corporations to US parent corporations located in Illinois(this costs about $400 million annually) and the reduces tax bills for Illinois corporations that produce in other states(about $200 million). 
• Getting rid of Accelerated depreciation it does what it says. It allows businesses to take a higher percentage of depreciation on business machines/supplies. This would bring in $300 million annually.
• Getting rid of the Retailer's Discount on Sales Tax. This would bring in over $100 million a year! As I've said in previous posts, computers are the norm in retail business...in fact most registers I've worked on keeps a running balance on cash/credit and tax for the day...its time to end this welfare to wall mart(kept $9M on this in FY11)...and home depot....and menards....and so on and so on. This would had up to a couple of hundred Million annually.
• Oil Company subsidies...what? in Illinois???? Yep, oil companies get a $75 million tax break! 

OH LOOK, I've just brought in a couple of billion dollars without it being very painful for the Citizens of Illinois! 

So, to our General Assembly, Governor, and other governmental executives--this is bold and brave. What you did with the Medicaid bill? That was shameful. Sure, attack little kids, the disabled and old people; the first two categories don't vote and the last one will die off...hopefully quickly--and with the measures you just shoved through, in all probability will be their future...which is very sad, considering Illinois is one of the wealthiest states in the country.

* all monies saved in the smash Medicaid bill are in millions of dollars

Differences between the right wing's SAHM and real SAHM's

A couple of weeks ago, there was the big non-issue in the corporate media on how the Democratic Party did not respect stay at home mothers because of the remark of one woman who said, truthfully, that Ann Romney hadn't worked a day in her life and was not a good receptor of how real moms(or at least middle class/poor families) felt about the economy...big fake hysterics from rich people went on and on and on. During this time, I was watching a real stay at home mom's life completely fall apart:
I met Claire when our kids played soccer together, at least 15 years ago. She was, for the most part, a blue collar stay at home mom--John, her husband, was a truck driver, her oldest child was just starting elementary school and she was happy being, "Mom". Both Claire and John came from similar backgrounds, high school education, John was a veteran and used the GI Bill to buy their home. They lived in a decent, but changing neighborhood where cops and teachers and the like lived, knew the neighbors and had cookouts and garage sales during the summer. Then illness slipped into the fabric of their lives.
John's issues began with carpal tunnel syndrome--kind of hard to drive a truck when you can't use your hands. He came back from that but then it was his back. He ended up having 2 or 3 surgeries on his back over 10 years and still lived in pain. He was also diagnosed with cancer and went through treatment for that. during one of his hospital stays(I think it was his second back surgery), the wrong medication was given to him and he almost died. Oh, and he was diagnosed with mental health issues also(like no one saw THAT coming with all of the stress of illness).
During this time, Claire would help with the bills by finding jobs, but she didn't have any training so her jobs consisted of server, cleaning and basic service jobs. In 2007, she herself, ended up in the hospital with back surgery which curtailed her ability to work again, along with a chronic lung disease. Not that she could anyway, she was John's nurse...by 2009, John couldn't take a shower by himself due to his inability of steadying himself, couldn't really do much for himself due to him forgetting what he had done or hadn't done, someone had to be home with him all the time and the kids had their own lives so Claire took over taking care of her husband. In 2009, they were finally approved to receive SSI(after being disapproved twice) so at least they had $1100 coming in monthly that could be depended on.
But $1100 doesn't go very far in these days, the mortgage was under $800, but it still took over half of the money coming in. They did receive food stamps...until their daughter found a full time job...in retail(yep, making all of $9 for 4 people). There's water, electricity, heating, phone...the phone was the first to go. Around Christmas of 2011, they received the foreclosure notice from the bank.
In January, Claire found an apartment for John and her and their 18 year old son. The rent was under $600 monthly and included heat and water so she felt ok about being able to keep it up. Since John couldn't help much with moving, Claire, the kids and 1 or 2 friends did the moving. One morning, Claire and her son went back to the old house to get another load, came back to the apartment and found John hanging, in a bedroom closet. And the nightmare is now only beginning...
Within a couple of weeks, Claire had nothing...no house, no car, no money. She was able to get a death benefit from Social Security of under $300, but she's 9 years too young to collect widow's benefits, although the woman who helped us also put in a claim under her disabilities and told her that if she's denied the first time, check and see why and what wasn't filed correctly. Nice thing about long term government employees...they'll usually try to help people that come in with substantive claims.
We also went to the Department of Human Services(Public Aid), but all she could receive is $200 in food stamps--no medical card, no cash. Oh, and she is basically homeless. She stayed with us for about a week and is living with friends, but she has nothing to get an apartment with.
So, this is the way that blue collar stay at home moms are treated...husband dies, she's just thrown out to the wolves because in the past 30+ years, the republicons and right wing have been tearing apart the social safety net to make sure that Americans don't have to suffer this way...John and Claire paid their taxes, unlike many of the Republicons, including the Mittster, worked for their lifestyle which was taken away by illness, not becasue of addiction, not because of being lazy, not because of being a minority(this is a white family), but because the breadwinner became chronically ill. This could happen to anyone, much easier than to happen than our American fantasy of becoming the next millionaire. This is your life, Middle Class America..when illness happens. Ann Romney and her ilk knows nothing of this terror, although many of the women she "speaks for" think about this terror on a daily basis.