Health Care

Patrick was reading Tim Pawlenty's new budget this morning. If it passes, Pat will not be able to get Minnesota Care, because he makes too much. The income cut off will be $8,000 a year instead of $26,000 as it is now. Pawlenty also wants to get rid of General Assistance, which is (I think) $203 month. This will leave destitute people with $10 a month in food stamps. That will be their entire income. They currently get General Assistance medical care. If T-Paw prevails, they will not get any medical care, except for that provided by emergency rooms.

All of this is so T-Paw won't have to tax the rich. People are going to starve and die, because the rich don't want to pay taxes, which as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, is the price we pay for a civilized society.

I guess T-Paw wants us to go back to the Hobbsian state of nature, where life is nasty, brutish and short.

This is really wearing. We have taken a 50% cut in household income and are managing to scrape by. But whenever we find a program that will help us survive, we discover it's under attack.

Patrick's comment on T-Paw's budget is, "From my experience of poor people, they are not going to roll over and die. They are not going to watch their children roll over and die."

So, what they do? Whatever they do to, in order to survive.

Welcome to the war of all against all.