(Welcome new staff writer Chaille! - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
Rick Perry opposes access to family planning and all healthcare related entitlement programs. In an interview with Newsweek's The Daily Beast he referred to Medicaid and Medicare as Ponzi Schemes and believes Medicare to be unconstitutional and that it should be eliminated.
Family Planning services in Texas were cut by two-thirds this past Legislative Session, under Perry's guise of slash and burn budgeting techniques. The Department of State Health Services estimates that 180,000 Texans (men and women) will lose access to birth control and life-saving cancer and disease screenings.
"I think it's really important to know that [Planned Parenthood] provides so much preventative healthcare, so much education," Dorothy Reno, with the Planned Parenthood of the Greater Capital Region said.
Planned Parenthood is at the heart of this ideological budgeting tactic. The Medicaid-funded Texas Women's Health Program was basically stripped as well during this past session. The new law doesn't allow Planned Parenthood to receive reimbursements from the Women' Health Program. The program is under the Health and Human Services Commission, and according to HHSC over 100,000 women are enrolled in the Women's Health Program. Despite this egregious budgetary restriction HHSC is applying for a temporary waiver through Medicaid to keep up the reimbursements through.
The cuts come into effect September 1, 2011. On The Texas Tribune Website a video discussing the effects to the Austin Planned Parenthood can be seen here.
Perry also wants to do away with Medicare and Medicaid because he believes them to be unconstitutional Ponzi Schemes (they're not). Apparently, the Federal Government trying to ensure the poor and the elderly are taken care of is corrupt and intrusive government.
Several efforts were made this past legislative session by Republican lawmakers who support Perry to allow Medicaid and Medicare to be controlled by the state as opposed to the federal government. Would you want the state to be solely in charge of these critical services after the damage they've done with the existing ones?
To Recap:
- Thanks to Perry 180,000 Texans will lose access to life saving medical and family planning services on September, 1 2011 (tomorrow!)
- Perry wants to put the State of Texas in charge of federally mandated programs like Medicare and Medicaid but doesn't want to put money in existing state government programs.
- Perry doesn't know what a Ponzi Scheme is.
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