Thursday, April 28, 2016

Walker herds seniors, disabled, as cash cow for insurers

Walker and his legislative allies have found yet another way to screw the poor in our once-proudly progressive state by preparing to let private, profit-driven businesses make a buck off other people's suffering:
Gov. Scott Walker's administration wants to shift multibillion dollar programs serving more than 55,000 elderly and disabled people from long-standing nonprofits to national for-profit health insurance companies.
Having eyed some Wisconsiites' medical needs as a big-business profit center last year, too: 
Walker budget upends Long-Term-Care patients; private insurers' win 

Here we go again - - another Walker surprise, 'because-I-can' budget bombshell - - this one upending thousands of families utilizing in-home Long Term Care assistance and routing some to out-of-state private insurance providers.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too funny that you source this back to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Scott Walker's biggest cheerleader! They promoted everything Walker and own this (and every other take-down of Wisconsin's fiscal integrity and economy).

I don't know why you sanitize their propaganda by pumping them up as a source for objetive information. They are nothing of the sort even though they have been decoupled from he 24/7 hate radio WTMJ.

Surely another source with even a smidgen more of integrity to tell these stories exists for you to link to.

Yvette9b said...

When I read this yesterday, I didn't put this announcement in the proper perspective. My guess is that many people will not qualify for long-term care under private policies. There are so many people with pre-existing conditions. I doubt there will be a state mandate to cover these people. The poor and elderly will again be royally screwed.

Anonymous said...

Just so no one mistakenly thinks that Gannett's purchase of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will mean less blatant pro-Walker propaganda, here are some of the other pro-Walker Gannett mouthpieces across Wisconsin:


Appleton - Post Crescent Media
Fond du Lac - Action Reporter Media
Green Bay - Press-Gazette Media
Manitowoc - HTR Media
Marshfield - News-Herald Media
Oshkosh - Oshkosh Northwestern Media
Sheboygan - Sheboygan Press Media
Stevens Point - Stevens Point Journal Media
Wausau - Daily Herald Media
Wisconsin Rapids - Daily Tribune Media

Things will get worse, much worse. MJS always served as the mighty Wurlitzer that converted Walker talking points into noooose. Once sanitized by the state's largest newspaper, every other part of Wisconsin's right-wing echo-chamber repeated the lies and propaganda, but now sourcing them back to MJS instead of Scott Walker's communications director and/or campaign.

When Journal Communications owned WTMJ-AM and MJS, they had a powerful propaganda machine. On the radio, 24/7 racist hate was directed towards Milwaukee, but since this was so one-sided and extreme, only the rabid foaming-at-the-mouth base listened regularly. The rest of us eventually turned our car radios off or went to FM.

MJS operated more subtly, reinforcing everything at WTMJ-AM, but to a different audience while hiding behind the lie of objective journalism. This is still the case today even though direct ownership ties have been broken up, but now Gannett owns not only the echo-chamber that catapults republican lies across the state, they own the mouthpiece that sanitizes the propaganda.

Unknown said...

Connecting the dots back to a group of guys from Wisconsin and beyond plotting on the beaches of lake Michigan...or something like that

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/04/paul-ryan-lets-bring-back-pre-existing

Anonymous said...

With the raging epidemic of dementia among us elders, it seems after reading this Attorney General's opinion about Long Term Care districts in Wisconsin -- I remain confused. Oh well, I'm already thinking I can't afford much more than a diet of bread and f*cked-up erstwhile water anyway, in my so-called future on earth, unless the kids save us.

Anonymous said...

Of course, I forgot to link this to my post (above): https://www.doj.state.wi.us/sites/default/files/AG%20Opinion%20Long%20Term%20Care%20Districts.pdf