Lawmakers abandon the vulnerable

To the editor:

Last year, Missouri lawmakers in a belt-tightening frenzy made massive cuts to the Medicaid program.

They also promised to deal with provider fraud in the 2006 legislative session.

This year, lawmakers, realizing they had gone too far with cuts, promised to correct their mistakes by restoring some programs such as Medicaid assistance for the working disabled.

The current session ended last week in a disgraceful series of parlor games that left unscrupulous providers free to plunder the treasury while restoring nothing to disabled Missourians.

The Senate passed to the House an anti-fraud plan attached to the bill restoring critically needed benefits to the working disabled where it was torpedoed by Republicans sympathetic to well-moneyed nursing home and medical interests.

As if to rub salt into the wound, a voter ID law was passed supposedly to prevent fraud, which strips many of Missouri's older adult and disabled citizens of their right to vote.

For two years now, Missouri lawmakers have abandoned vulnerable citizens while showing a total lack of courage in dealing with fat-cat special interests that bilk the Medicaid system for $200 million to $500 million dollars each year.

In our society, when lawmakers fail the people they serve, remedies are available.

One such remedy is an initiative on November's ballot that would overturn last years Medicaid legislation. Given the impotence of Missouri lawmakers in dealing with the true villains of Medicaid fraud, perhaps a ballot measure mandating they do so will be needed also.

WILL RICHARDSON, Jackson