Trump Admin Poised To Give Rural Whites A Carve-Out On Medicaid Work Rules
By Alice Ollstein | May 14, 2018 6:00 am
As the Trump administration moves aggressively to allow more states to impose mandatory work requirements on their Medicaid programs, several states have come under fire for crafting policies that would in practice shield many rural, white residents from the impact of the new rules.
In the GOP-controlled states of Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio, waiver proposals would subject hundreds of thousands of Medicaid enrollees to work requirements, threatening to cut off their health insurance if they can’t meet an hours-per-week threshold.
Those waivers include exemptions for the counties with the highest unemployment, which tend to be majority-white, GOP-leaning, and rural. But many low-income people of color who live in high-unemployment urban centers would not qualify, because the wealthier suburbs surrounding those cities pull the overall county unemployment rate below the threshold.
“This is sort of a version of racial redlining where they’re identifying communities where the work requirements will be in full effect and others where they will be left out,” George Washington University health law professor Sara Rosenbaum told TPM. “When that starts to result in racially identifiable areas, that’s where the concern increases.”
more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-admin-poised-to-give-rural-whites-a-carve-out-on-medicaid-work-rules
= new reply since forum marked as read
Weren't there all these stories about produce "left in the fields" because the "migrant workers" have been deported or not allowed in?
This policy is pure, unadulterated racism and it's remarkable how that is somehow justified.
There is a natural assumption, that has generally drawn people to cities for work, that this is where the "jobs" are. But the reality is that unless you are "skilled", you are left with McJobs that of late, have in many cases been filled by seniors whose pensions and/or SS don't provide enough to live (let alone any who actually lost their pensions during previous downturns when companies went bankrupt).
And because many states (as you have seen with WV and AZ) cut funding to urban schools, those schools not only cut arts/music and language programs, but they cut voc-tech programs, and don't even have enough to get new books (and forget about any computers or tablets). And in some cases, you have trade unions who only offer training/apprenticeships to their own families (or friends), most of whom are white because for decades, unions managed to keep blacks out.
There was a huge transit strike here in Philly in 1944 because white transit drivers didn't want black drivers, and the feds had to call out the National Guard to sit on the trolleys and buses. My mother was 14 then and would occasionally talk about the Guard on the trolleys.
And just last week, our mayor here in Philly had to re-do an initiative (he will go through a capital budget instead) to improve the city recreation centers, libraries, playgrounds because City Council basically told him there were no guarantees the unions that would do the work would have enough workers to reflect the POC population here -
“I think that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back,” a City Hall staffer unauthorized to speak on the record said, referring to the scene in chambers last week. “It’s clear the administration is frustrated.”
http://planphilly.com/articles/2018/05/12/philly-mayor-threatens-council-over-lagging-rec-center-rebuild
Earlier our City Council had dealt with this union issue when it comes to a lack of diversity -
Despite the 16-to-1 passage of the legislative framework governing Rebuild last year, Council members aren’t convinced that the mayor is doing enough to ensure that goals are met. Kenney came into office with the support of the city’s white labor establishment, along with unprecedented levels of black support for a white candidate. “We went out on a limb, big time. Some of us took a very difficult vote because we did see a pathway to get people into family-sustaining jobs in the building trades union, something we haven’t been able to achieve before,” Council President Darrell Clarke said.
For the better part of three hours on Thursday, council members raised concerns about negotiations with the unions and mechanisms for accountability, once the project gets rolling. “We really need to get some clarity before we get out here today,” said Clarke. “I’ve been hearing different iterations of the path to union membership all along this process.” But without anyone from any of the region’s building trades unions there to testify at the hearing, the answers sought by the council remained elusive. The Philadelphia Buildings Trade Council did not return phone calls from PlanPhilly.
The Rebuild team spent the hearing on the defensive, reintroducing previously discussed strategies in play to help the city realize its diversity goals. These include mandating that 45 percent of the workforce consists of minority laborers on all Rebuild sites, and 50 percent live in Philadelphia. Beyond increasing the number of Philadelphians of color on worksites, the city has designed pathways to permanent union membership via brokered pacts with building trades organizations. One route will be through a partnership with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA). The city redevelopment agency will employ an estimated 40 individuals with experience in skilled trades and no union card to work on a select number of Rebuild projects. According to the administration, after a period of time (which is yet to be finalized with the unions and subject to negotiation), those individuals will be granted a permanent union card.
http://planphilly.com/articles/2018/03/23/parks-rec-makeover-caught-in-clash-over-union-diversity-rules
So being in an urban area doesn't automatically equate to availability of a job - particularly when you have the majority population working overtime to keep POC out of them.
And I stopped after that. The devil's spawn, that one.
I agree that students should be given a freedom to choose because in the past, far too many - particularly POC, were purposely put into "tracks" that kept them out of the academic/college sphere. So when they did try to go to college, they spent the first 2 years in remedial classes. Basically, if you didn't get into the academic/college-prep track, then you were shunted into something nebulous and meaningless like "business", where maybe when you got out of high school, you could hope to be a teller (and then banks got rid of most of them) or work in retail.
I think there is a mindset among liberals of late that has eschewed the "skilled trades", with a sense that somehow they aren't "skills", despite the fact that they are! There is a big gap in terms of certain fields.
