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Home Care Workers Protest Budget Cuts That Would Drop 380,000 Patients |
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More than 3,000 members of the United Domestic Workers Homecare Providers Union (UDW/AFSCME) joined with other service workers and their allies in Los Angeles to support critical public programs from the budget ax.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has proposed budget cuts that UDW says would all but destroy the In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, which provides home care for more than 420,000 low-income elderly and Californians with disabilities.
Under the latest Schwarzenegger plan, some 380,000 individuals—nearly 90 percent of all IHSS participants—would be thrown out of the program. This comes on top of an earlier proposal from the governor that would cut the pay for the state’s home care providers back to minimum wage.
UDW Executive Director Douglas Moore says:
While the governor’s earlier proposals were foolish and shortsighted, his latest scheme is outrageous, vindictive and unconscionable.
Despite the Golden State’s mounting state deficit, polls show a majority of California voters oppose cutting public services, but favor higher taxes on the wealthy and on specific industries like oil, tobacco and alcohol. Voters last month rejected several propositions to balance the budget, one of which would have put a cap on state spending.
“The solutions are right there in front of us,” says UDW President Laura Reyes, a San Diego home care provider.
The voters have spoken. The legislature and governor just need to listen to the will of the people.
The next step is for lawmakers to develop a progressive state budget in 2010 that does not depend on ballot initiatives, UDW says.
The real victims of the budget cuts would be the state’s seniors and people with disabilities. “We understand times are hard right now and we need to tighten up,” Evelyn Lopez of Bakersfield told the Los Angeles Times. “But what [the governor's] proposing are big cuts.”
Lopez said that if state workers were going to be paid minimum wage, most would probably find other jobs that pay better. That would reduce the number of providers available to watch her developmentally disabled son while she is at work, Lopez said.
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The attack on essential social services, such as Home Care Workers, are a part of the larger attack upon public education, “single payer” health care. The trillions of dollars looted by the banks and Wall Street, the hundreds of billions for unending wars of profit for oil companies and the military-industrial complex, the tax breaks for the wealthy, are the result of the long decline and now collapse of U.S. and global capitalism.
Here is one article that sheds some light on why this destruction of government “of, by and for the” needs of the people.
Obama chooses private profit over healthcare needs
8 June 2009
Patrick Martin
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/pers-j08.shtml
President Obama’s Saturday address initiated the public phase of his administration’s effort to pass major healthcare legislation. His remarks were notable for the absence of any reference to the actual crisis facing tens of millions of working people in the United States: more than 47 million people are living without health insurance, and millions more are underinsured and face crippling bills and even bankruptcy in the event of a serious illness.
Instead, Obama focused entirely on the rising cost of healthcare, which he presented as a major problem both for the federal government, the largest single payer of healthcare bills, and for corporate America. He declared, “The soaring costs of health care make our current course unsustainable” and pledged to heed concerns “that the ballooning costs of Medicare and Medicaid could lead to fiscal catastrophe down the road.” In other words, the administration is concerned, not about improving healthcare services for the American people, but about cutting costs in order to improve the financial health of American capitalism.
There is no difficulty, intellectually or technically, in devising a rational healthcare system. Advances in science and technology make it possible to deliver adequate healthcare services to the entire population at a fraction of the current cost. Every person should have access to healthcare as a basic right and be able to choose their own doctor and receive treatment at a modern, clean, well-run facility, run as a public utility either at no cost to patients at all, or with a modest fee. Medical bills should be relegated to the museum of antiquities, along with the saws used to conduct surgery without anesthesia.
But such a system would require putting an end to the private, profit-making medical industry, one of the most lucrative sources of wealth for the financial aristocracy that rules America. The pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, the insurance industry, and the hospital and nursing home chains would be nationalized and operated under democratic control as a public service—a transformation that the vast majority of the American people would applaud.
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Where is the voice of AFL-CIO and organized labor in this
health care crisis? Why is the no support for “single-payer” from the AFL-CIO?
This is the most critically important issue today facing working people! Without this, the country will continue to degenerate into a third world country: a tiny percentage of millionaires and billionaires at the top, and the rest of us increasingly desperate impoverishment for ourselves, children and grand children.
There is no hope for a “restored” or bailed out capitalism that will bring back good jobs (gone forever overseas). Employers don’t want to pay for health care, retirement, overtime or even a living wage. IT IS OVER FOR CAPITALISM!
We need to transition to a socialist economy geared to filling the needs of the people.
End all imperialist wars! Cut the defense budget by 50 percent!
Nationalize the banks, the entire energy industry (oil, gas, nuclear, etc.) Re-instate taxes on corporations, end off-shore tax havens, etc.etc.
Note that the only socialist party on the California ballot, the Peace and Freedom Party, is holding a conference in August 1, in
San Francisco. Check it out.
Dump the Democrats!
In addition to Home Care Workers in California, teachers in California are being fired as the public education system in California is being methodically destroyed.
Public education devastated by California budget cuts
By Kevin Martinez
5 June 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/cali-j05.shtml
Two weeks after the California electorate voted down a series of ballot propositions that would have imposed austerity conditions and regressive taxes, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has advanced a wide-ranging set of proposals to slash whatever remains of California’s social safety net.
Public education is being decimated. In late May, Governor Schwarzenegger announced revisions to his May budget proposal that include $1.6 billion in cuts to the state’s education system for the 2008-2009 school year and $4.2 billion in cuts for 2009-2010.
These reductions in spending, coming on top of $11.6 billion in cuts already passed by the state government this year, will make California the last state in the US in terms of funding-per-pupil. They translate to roughly $3,000 in less money for every student in the state.
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The war that is being waged against public education and what little remains of the state infrastructure in California is one of the most glaring example of the failure of capitalism.
Read the daily World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org