Texas Dumps the Poor Off Medicaid

I am sick about Texas dumping the poor off of Medicaid since 1/1/06.

1. A disabled adult on a combination of SSDI and SSI gets Medicaid through the SSI claim until 24 months have transpired and the claim is converted to Medicare A & B with a Medicaid supplement through the QMB program. Those individuals were dumped off Medicaid effective 1/1/06 when their involuntary Medicare Part D became effective. Many did not even get a letter. Also, they got $88.00/mon cut from their SSDI check, which were less than 600/mon, forever, and there is nothing they can do about it.

2. A retired person or couple under the Federal poverty line received the QMB program benefits via their indigency (880/mon for individual; 1094/mon for couple). They lost their Medicaid cut off 1/1/06, without a notice. They also have 88/mon yanked from the monthy check. For a couple it would be 172/mon.

In Texas, an individual food stamp allotment is $11.00 per month. The CHIPS program for poor kids, promised by the State to expand and increase enrollment by SB1 in 2005, has not been funded. Kids cannot get dental care, eye glasses or hearing aids. Medicaid will not pay for a prothesis, just crutches, or one self powered wheelchair every two years. Medicaid will not pay for adult mental health care. Now that QMB is gone, thousands more unmedicated, boozy psychotics will be roaming the streets.

Makes a body proud.

Bush's Medicare drug program was supposed to make sure the poor would transition smoothly by supporting the states to keep these folks in QMB or a same/similar program. Bush promised to reimburse the states for the transition costs.

Texas just dumped everybody under part D off Medicaid. Damn them for their evil hearts, and all persons complicit in their crimes, even by ommission.

p.s. Texas is dumping bilingual education, too, in favor of total English emersion.