Bob Herbert, in a column today, says all that should ever need to be said about Phil Bredesden's presidential ambitions:
The word in Tennessee is that Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, has presidential aspirations. I find that interesting. Perhaps he can run on the success he's had throwing sick people off of Medicaid.
Thanks to Mr. Bredesen's leadership, Tennessee is dumping nearly 200,000 residents, some of them desperately ill, from TennCare, the state's Medicaid program. Cindy Mann, a research professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, concisely characterized the governor's efforts:
"What he's decided to do is save health care costs simply by not giving people health care."
How's that for a solution to a tough public policy issue?
What is happening in Tennessee is profoundly cruel. The people being removed from the rolls - some of them disabled, some suffering from such serious illnesses as cancer and heart disease - are mostly working-poor individuals who cannot afford private insurance. They are being left with no coverage and in many instances are in a state of absolute panic.
"People are going to die because of this," said Carolyn Cagle, a widow from Paris, Tenn., whose 34-year-old son, Lloyd, is a diabetic who has already lost part of his right foot. He is being dropped from the program.
I'm honestly unsure that I could even vote for the guy. What he's done in Tennessee offends everything that I believe in, everything that makes me a Democrat. He should be defeated at home and shunned nationally for the cavalier, technocratic way he's treating the poor.
