Blane Beckwith wants to keep living at home with his mother and younger brother in Berkeley, Calif.
For that to happen, Beckwith, 54, who has spinal muscular atrophy and uses a wheelchair, relies on an aide paid by the state to get him in and out of bed, bathe him, feed him, dress him and do everything he can’t do for himself.
Now that kind of help is in jeopardy. California, facing a $19.1 billion budget gap, is considering a reduction in funding that pays for home care aides for the disabled. It already cut funds last year.
Beckwith worries that under the new, tighter rules, he might no longer qualify for his aide and other assistance and that he’ll end up in a nursing home.
“I’d rather be dead,” he says. “Twenty years after the Americans With Disabilities Act was signed, things are getting worse for us. States want to save money by cutting services to the most vulnerable people. That’s us, the disabled.”
I wonder where it will all end?
Anne Laurie
Soylent green is tasty!
IM
He is an moocher that is all. This kind of government “services ” just reduce economic freedom and create the wrong incentives.
licensed to kill time
Boy, this is just shiny happy sunshine day on the front page, huh? I’m off to check the stockpile…
Mnemosyne
The irony, of course, is that most studies show that putting disabled people in nursing homes is much more expensive than providing home care for them, so they’re actually making a bigger hole in the budget in the name of “saving money.”
That’s what drives me nuts about the so-called “deficit hawks” — they’re more interested in removing benefits from people than they are in saving money, so actual costs savings don’t matter to them as long as they can look “tough” by taking home care away from all of those whiny disabled people. Oh, sure, it costs the state less, allows disabled people more independence, and often allows them to work part-time and thus pay taxes, but that’s not as important as the symbolism of taking home care away.
MikeBoyScout
While this situation is tragic, let’s not go overboard and ask the uber wealthy to pay more taxes. If one did that, well, …. ARMAGEDDON!
I regret Beckwith has but one life to give for his economic superiors. Fortunately doctor assisted suicide is not an option in CA, so he’ll do the Christian thing and suffer interminably leading to a grand reward in heaven. Ain’t Amerika great?
Bulworth
Why doesn’t this guy get some personal responsibility? This aid paid for by the state sounds like “spreading the wealth around”, and that’s nothing but old fashioned communism. And why isn’t he thankful that Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are trying to stop the Ground Zero Mosque?
Mako
Every wheelchairbound Californian deserves a state-provided servant.
Chuck Butcher
As soon as the GOP retakes power?
El Cid
Fuck this god-damned parasite. If he’s got a motorized wheelchair then he should tie a damned broom to it and get a job sweeping. Or haul an ice cream cart behind him.
We ain’t got the fucking money to pay for all these anchor cripples that parents come to our country to drop.
Chuck Butcher
@Mako:
dumbass
He’ll cost more in a nursing home…
Idiotology in the way of sense.
IM
OT: This is Marty Peretz on the Cordoba center:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/76845/the-muslim-mosque-set-project-you-cannot-possibly-be-against
Don’t leave the boat. Just take all your prejudices about peretz, double them and you will get the right impression.
thereisnorule6
hello, we are the republicans. we are going to force you to have a child with an birth defect, and then take away all means of support so we can serve our campaign funders. What a country.
Mako
@Chuck Butcher:
Tell it to Prince Randian.
John O
More important to wonder when it will all end as opposed to where or how.
I need 20 years.
You have to give the GOP credit, it has been a long slog, but they’ve finally convinced enough people to believe that taxes on the wealthy are not a good way (towards) out of our mess, but are actually morally evil.
Kudos!
What a country, indeed.
meander
@Mnemosyne brings up a great point about the much higher long term costs of this change in policy. But this — along with things like the State of Arizona selling its statehouse and then leasing it back (or proposing to do that) — is a symptom of a broken government, where they are so strapped for cash in the near term that they are essentially working with loan sharks for a quick buck to meet the next bill payment. In California, it’s because there is a 2/3 requirement to raise taxes and the GOP is 100000% against that under any circumstances. There is no longer any rational financial analysis of the cost of X vs. Y, it’s all about how do we avoid raising taxes right now.
Cermet
And when raygun the asswipe released all the mental patients onto the streets did everyone oppose it or did the bluedog dem0rats and their repug-a-thug allies just cheer on the bullshit insanity of morning in amerika … assholes all. This is were those monsters were driving the train wreack called amerika gold for the wealthy and shaft for all the dumbfucks that vote their anti-christ family values programs.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
When the government is completely shut down by Republicans. They want to create their Somalia right here, because no one can do libertarian better than us.
Oh, and fund a war against Iran with no taxes.
Ash Can
Yeah, but the guy in Carmel who owns a mansion on the beach and collects Ferraris won’t see his taxes go up next year, so it’s all good.
Jeezus, Cole, what happened to that warm, happy Dairyland glow? Those presentations today must have been a real bringdown. Either that, or you got into a bad batch of Uff Da.
suzanne
@Mako: Well, you deserve to percolate in your own feces. I’ll kick in a couple of bucks to make sure that happens.
QuaintIrene
And of course, Irony Alert. One of the Blogads on this thread is “Quality Home Care For Your Loved One. Peace Of Mind For You.”
Unless you’re in California. But sure it’s coming to a State near you.
Just Some Fuckhead
Unfortunately for this poor SOB, the final health care bill didn’t include death panels. He’ll just have to suck it up and be miserable like the rest of us.
zhak
I’d say it’s pretty simple where it will all end.
Reagan started this ball rolling with his whole “the government is the problem” thing, which somehow made starving the government of necessary funds a patriotic thing. (This occurred roughly 4 years ahead of schedule.) Since that time, the Republicans have done everything in their power to prove that the government is, indeed, the problem. Their tactics include no viable fiscal policies, but rely instead heavily on rhetoric and jingoism. The end goal, no longer really obfuscated, is to dismantle the more egalitarian aspects of the nation — especially its safety nets — so that the rich have all the power, and the rest of us have all the burdens.
The Democrats haven’t exactly done much to stop the trend.
Brachiator
Strangely, not even the Democrats in Sacramento have proposed a shadow budget which would deal with the full $20 billion deficit. Nor have they proposed a budget that would tax the rich.
The budget was due July 1 and the Democrats claim to be bending over backwards to craft a plan that would also be acceptable to state Republicans, but neither party seems to be greatly concerned about social safety nets or about shifting the burden of taxation to the upper income groups.
And as I noted in another post, if the state budget does not include significant increases, you can look for a huge cut in county and city services by December of this year, which will hurt everyone. For example, a number of Southern California transit agencies already have contingency plans to slash the number of new buses in service, and to lay off drivers and mechanics. Laying off mechanics has rarely been done even in previous bad budget times. This is going to have a huge impact on workers, students and disabled people who depend on public transportation.
General Stuck
It will end when the American people grow up and take the borrowed silver spoon out of their collectives asses and realize there is no free lunch. If they want a moral society that doesn’t invade Iraq and botch the other war, doesn’t not help the disabled and those with less than enough to live, then they will need to stop listening to shit like gay marriage is bad cause someone says it makes baby jeevus cry and causes hetero divorces, and that a social safety net in a capitalist society equals soshulism and liberal commies will eat your babies, and that the only thing that trickles down is rain and elephant piss, and most of all, if you want what you want when you want it, it might be a good idea to pay for it. And make a choice, the right choice for a moral people, between a second Mercedes and helping some of your fellow citizens make it through the day hopefully without starving or freezing to death, and getting treated by a doctor when they need to.
And having the epiphany, that somehow, all of these things are related when it comes to their own personal happiness, well being, and fulfillment from life, even rich people, especially rich people/
wengler
The Randian response is to laugh at him as he flails around in an effort to do basic things. Ayn Rand valued sociopathy over all else and the ability to watch a disabled person suffer without even evoking the precursor of the impulse to help them is the pinnacle of Randian ideology.
John O
@zhak:
The largely wealthy national media isn’t exactly discouraging the message, either.
John O
@General Stuck:
Shorter?
“We’re screwed.”
Thomas
We are living in a country in which the wall street class takes home 7 figure bonuses and 8 figure severance packages (that’s when their incompetence actually gets them fired) and we have stories like this one. When does this shit end?
General Stuck
@John O:
Pretty much, but the rapture is just around the corner, I hear. But I will be stuck, as it were, here with the rest of you evil tree hugging commie dweebs.
edit – we can make Tunch King of the new REalm, and I will marry Kate Beckinsale every day of the week. and thrice on Sunday.
Mumphrey
Yeah, well, no real American would ever have spinal muscular atrophy. And any real American would rather be dead than get caught riding in a wheelchair. Wheelchairs = Axles of Evil.
Frank
Beautiful. I love our priorities. We had no problem spending money we didn’t have on the war in Iraq. Hell, to make it even easier we passed the Iraq war budgets via supplementals so it wouldn’t even be included in the official budget.
But money for people with disabilities – go to hell!
And some on the right actually have the audacity to refer to us as a Christian country. I beg to differ.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck: If I were about 20 yrs older I’d be a bit less personally concerned … though having a kid and a grandkid makes the outcome rather personal.
Cat Lady
@Mumphrey:
Am I a bad person for laughing at that?
I can haz reset button plz?
John O
@Chuck Butcher:
If I was 40 years younger I would buckle down, eat mac and cheese and noodles, do what I’m supposed to do and save a little as I go, and hope like hell the cycle turns in 20 years.
But I just don’t see how the death-spiral ends in the next 10-20.
Maybe I’m just not accounting for the fact everything moves faster these days…
Erik Vanderhoff
Schwarzenegger wanting to eliminate IHSS is one of the most bone-headed budget decisions ever made in California. First off, it means giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid. Second, it means spending more Medi-Cal (Medicaid) dollars on nursing homes for the disabled because, and I know this might be hard for him to understand, not all users of IHSS are elderly and on Medicare. Which really just means that the state is one class-action lawsuit from having to spend many hundreds of millions more to re-instate IHSS and compensate the plaintiffs.
What a doofus.
Mike in NC
There’s an old Kurt Russell movie called “Escape from New York”. They say it’s a favorite of President Newt Gingrich.
Mnemosyne
@meander:
Which is pretty much exactly the way most businesses behave — no thinking about the long term, just stripping the company for all of its useful assets so you can boost the stock price for another quarter.
When people were saying that government should be more like business, I don’t think this is what they meant.
Nick
@Chuck Butcher:
When Italy and Greece became too much for my grandparents to survive in and no longer had any hope of it getting any better for them, they got on a boat and came to America.
Perhaps it’s time to go back
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher: The outcome was set in stone before the ink dried on the founding document, which was a bold and brilliant effort to create one country out of two very different ones. It was only a matter of time, and even though militarily defeated, the smaller but never fully conquered other country, now is using the initial idea of slow to change, meant for stability, divided government with potent protections built in to give the minority power in this particular democracy, against the union in order to destroy it. And they are busy at it, by extension, via refusal to participate, holding a gun to the head of the country to let us have power, or else. It might just work this cycle, to a degree, but what they want now is a return to the ungentility of the old Aristocracy with a mean streak, they want back their Confederacy and will not take no for an answer. That is a price that is unpayable by the rest of us.
The mess we are in is really the culmination of a 30 year electoral effort played out by the the one man one vote rule by proxy through the republican party to instill so called conservative economic theory, that was and is, in reality, a blueprint to install the princes and paupers way of the old southern lifestyle. That will not work within a middle class based society.
So here we are, held hostage by our own system of government meant to keep it all glued together in a measured majoritarian republic that gives a veto to rebels in our midst, from ghosts past demanding now, not only their due, but mostly everything they want, or we grind to a halt. And a democracy ground to a halt will puff up and explode into pieces sooner or later.
There will be a reckoning with this revived conflict in our once again divided house, who knows where it will lead to.
cckids
Well, here in NV, there is no aid, or aide either. My 27-year-old has Mr. Beckwith beat with a trach, feeding tube & being non-verbal. If the spouse & I were not willing to live on one income (and, no, we’re not making it on one income), he would be in a nursing home. With his level of disability, that would cost Christ only knows how much each month.
But only for a few months–at best. If you truly need assistance, physical assistance that is, you ain’t going to live long in any nursing home. That is just fact. You’re going to get some type of infection, pressure sore, etc, etc, then you’ll be dead.
End of state’s problem. Your family can suck it up & sacrifice & take care of you, or you can die. Welcome to true “special needs” in America.
PaulW
It will end with the Far Right Wingnut’s fantasies all come true: The 14th Amendment abolished, Obama impeached and exiled to Kenya, California bankrupted, Texas and South Carolina seceding, Abortions outlawed and Nazi rape gangs getting every white woman impregnated For The Cause, and everyone not registered as a Republican in jail or the grave.
Bill Murray
I predict in the nirvana that was pre-Enlightenment feudalism. I just hope my lord will not be too bad
Ruckus
@Erik Vanderhoff:
That’s actually Doofus Shit
But I’m not sure it matters