dammit medicaid. . .

More than half of the hurricane evacuees in Louisiana who have sought help from Medicaid to cover their medical bills have been rejected because of strict eligibility guidelines that keep out even some people far below the poverty line. The more than 6,000 people who have been turned down for coverage since the Aug. 29 storm have been caught in a political dispute about whether eligibility should be relaxed in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and if so, who should pay for the added health-care costs: the state or federal government?

"At this point, we have no choice but to deny those people," Ruth Kennedy, Louisiana's Medicaid director, said Tuesday.

this is the problem with living in a country in which meeting the basic needs of human survival and welfare are not government priorities. i deal with this stuff all the time at work, and it isn't just the katrina survivors who are getting screwed over (though their plight does bring some of the ridiculous incompetence and willful ignorance of our government to greater light). it's people every day, in every state, every city and small town, getting poorer and sicker as the fat cats lounge at the ranch. maybe for the katrina survivors, the feds will actually do something (although it would be about a month late in the coming. . .), but what about everyone else?