The great Pawlenty unwinding for low income seniors.

[kickysnana]

A friend who does contract mail order prescription filling for Minnesota Assisted Living facilities says that Pawlenty;s unwinding will on August 1st stop state funded contributions for medicines to Assisted Living facilities. He is not sure if about nursing home drugs as that is someone else.

Circuit breaker low income tax rebates for low income folks are also cut for next year as are increases in Social Security. State medicare funds also pick up Medicare premiums for the extremely low income, that may be cut or reduced. That may take half to more than some peoples monthly income. That and the donut hole ought to put a whole lot of seniors into their children's homes by Christmas.

Metro mobility will no longer run to many of the senior buildings, assisted living facilities and nursing homes. Not everyone has a scooter to get them to the bus stop and with a thousand extra wheel chairs/scooters the bus system in the metro should grind to a snails pace.

That is what we know.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. And yet the Republicanites who write on the Strib's website

act as if Pawlenty cut "welfare" to illegal immigrants (who don't get it in the first place) and other groups they love to hate. (One of the wing-nuts went so far as to say that "only welfare leeches vote Democrat," but then, those wing-nuts are typically bad at math and other aspects of real life.)

Maybe they'll change their tune when they either find their parents or grandparents moving into their spare room or have to drive them everywhere and struggle with the wheelchair on both ends because Metro Mobility doesn't serve them anymore.

A lot of those wing-nuts learn only through experience, and sometimes not even then.

By the way, you're not the only one who is upset. About 600 of us from local church groups demonstrated at the Capitol last week. (I thought that was a pretty good turnout for a Tuesday morning with short notice.)

[dflprincess]

2. I was so glad when I saw the church groups protest on the news

given that Timmy does claim to be a "Christian". The only thing that would have made it perfect would have been if his minister had led the march.

The problem with the wing nuts on the Strib's site is that, if any of them or their parents get any state help, they seem their situation as "different" (in that they are deserving of help while others are not) - like the anti-choice types that bring their daughters (or selves) in for an abortion because their circumstances are just so very special.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Right, it's the "I'm staunchly pro-life, but

pregnancy would have ruined my daughter's year as captain of the soccer team" crowd.