This Letter Gives Us Something To Think About
By: Joanne Consalvo-Mulvaney
MACON,GA News-
Dear Editor, In response to the AJC news article titles ‘Medicaid Muddle’ I have several things to say to Gov. Perdue and a few politicians here in Georgia. A few months ago the Medically Needy Spin Down program was abolished here in Georgia leaving almost 1,700+ elderly nursing home patients and their families scurrying to find a way to pay the average $4,500.00 per month nursing home bill.

My WWII veteran father, Joseph Consalvo, was one of the seventeen hundred elderly nursing home patients being given the boot and possibly being pushed out onto the streets because of a ‘budget crunch’ along with Perdue’s spokesperson stating “the state doesn’t have the money to restore the medically needy eligibility.”

For our Governor and some of our State politicians to tighten the budget on the backs of our elderly and many of our veterans who are in nursing homes IS a national disgrace.

If Georgia’s budget is in a ‘crunch’ WHY are our politicians allowing our elderly, our veterans to be the victims in all this? Many of these patients are men and women who served in our military putting their necks on the line to protect and defend this nation so that we may enjoy our freedoms. Instead of our politicians harming the elderly American taxpayers why don’t they look to find and reduce spending in another area: that being the outrageous costs each year to the American taxpayers where we are paying MILLIONS State wide and BILLIONS nationally to provide ‘free’ medical care and educational needs to illegal aliens.

Illegal aliens are bankrupting our health care system to a tune of $60 billion per year and educational costs of $7.4 billion per year. Why aren’t those expenditures reduced and eliminated? Why are the American veterans and our elderly having to pay the price in reducing expenditures within the state budget while illegal aliens, people who have broken our laws, are being taken care of and not having to ‘pay the piper’ when it comes to budget cuts.?

Not only has the state of Georgia done a ‘dirty deed’ to our elderly and our veterans but Congress also approved the ‘Millennium Act’ several years ago that only allows veterans with a 70% “service connected” disability rating into the federally funded V.A nursing homes. My WWII veteran father was denied access to the Dekalb V.A nursing home because of the Millennium Act. And then to top it all off the State of Georgia pulled the rug out from under my father by abolishing the “Medicaid medically needy’ program leaving him without any hope and leaving him and our family in despair.

My WWII veteran father died two weeks ago in which he took it to his grave that not only did the V.A deny him access to Dekalb’s federally funded V.A nursing home but the State of Georgia also created a way to deny him assistance as well.

What a way to treat our elderly; what a way to treat our veterans; what a disgrace.

Something is very wrong with this picture when our elderly and our veterans are denied assistance and aid for their nursing home needs due to a ‘lack of funding and budget cuts’ while at the same time some members of Congress and some State officials continue to allow the American taxpayers to foot the bill in the billions of dollars each year for illegal aliens medical and educational needs.

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Joanne Consalvo-Mulvaney U.S Navy veteran Stockbridge, GA

What did you expect when right wing conservative Republicans have been elected and now control all branches of government? We have seen these people pass legislation that is designed to specifically hurt your poor, your needy, your elderly, all of our veterans. All the safety nets are being demolished as these evil conservatives try to balance the budget on the backs of the most needy in our society.

I use the word EVIL because when you deliberately hurt the most needy in our society by passing legislation that is only designed to protect the wealthy while bringing extreme hardships to the lower income people in our society is criminal.

Rolling Thunder needs to get its act straight and begin telling its members the truth about these conservative republicans.

Rolling thunder supported these people but I think they were duped by all the false patrotism and flag waving these conservatives seem so well to do.

John McCain and John Kerry both personally went to Nam to try to locate our missing POW's yet Rolling Thunder endorsed that chick hawk Bush who has yet to be honest about his "lost time" in the Air force national guard.

America needs to wake up and see the destructive politics these conservatives are using. Conservatives use our most cherished symbols, our flag, our patrotic songs to dupe and decieve people through talk radio and Fox news.

Your faith and good will is shown through your actions. All I have seen so far from conservatives is lip service and double talk to our brave Veterans.

No doubt I will be banned from this board since the truth has been so obscured by conservative republicans that the majority of Americans still believe all these problems are being caused by the Liberal movement.

You want the truth go to the AARP website and participate on the discussion board.