Heartless And Stupid

So great not-white hope #2 for the R party has decided to end Medicaid coverage for hospice care.

NEW ORLEANS -- Starting Feb. 1 Louisiana will stop offering hospice care services to most patients on medicaid.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is eliminating the service to families in the state due to state budget cuts.

...

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals say the elimination of hospice care for medicaid patients will mean nearly $3.3 million in savings this year alone. In 2014, it'll mean $8.3 million in savings.

However, Burns believes the state will end up paying much more with terminally ill patients forced to turn to local hospitals.

"They'll just go in and out of the hospitals, maybe go to icus, and they wont' be able to have their family around them with hospice care," said Burns.

This, I think, is a perfect metaphor for today's teabagger-based Republicans. They'd rather people die less humanely, more miserably, with less comfort, than raise the revenues to provide the needed care. And I think the comment at the end is right: it'll end up costing more, defeating its cold-hearted and ignorant (in the sense of ignoring the non-wealthy) purpose.

 The same can be said of virtually their whole agenda: don't pay for things for the neediest among us; don't pay for the things we all need; provide happy tax rates for their big donors; and reap the costs downwind, when bridges crumble, medical costs rise, kids don't have the education to rise out of poverty. The costs deferred will only rise, and the problems will only become more difficult and expensive to solve.

Appalling. There's no other word for it.

Stupid. There's no other word for it.

Despicable. Selfish. Short-sighted. Ignorant. Indefensible. Unchristian. Mean-spirited.

There are no other words for it.

[Update: guess he reads this blog. He changed his mind, the same mind that thought it was okay in the first place.]

[Image source]