Public versus Private - Dealing with the State

I have Stage IV Cancer, which means I take a lot of medications. Aside from my chemotherapy (which, fortunately, my hospital in super-liberal Connecticut won't ever force me to go without even if I can't pay for it and have no insurance), I take opiate analgesics, steroids, benzodiazepines, proton pump inhibitors, and anti-depressants.

One of the requirements for me to be on Medicaid is to pay what is called a "spend down". This is an amount of money for which I am responsible because I make too much money (my only income, by the way, is Social Security Disability) for Medicaid to be free. I can submit this spend down in the form of bills, and once this spend-down has been submitted, I should be able to get almost all of my medications either for free or with very low co-pays.

I have a visiting nurse type agency with which I work that is a private non-profit. This organization provides me with a wonderful social worker who handles all the interaction between myself and my state worker. For at least two weeks now, my worker with the private agency has been making phone calls to find out why my insurance has not come through yet. My state worker has not called back. In fact, my state worker has even gone so far as to leave a message stating that only one voice mail is necessary. This is apparently not true, since she hasn't called back. So now, I can't get my medication at the proper prices until this whole thing is cleared up. We're buying small amounts at a time now, hoping to just make it until finally the spend down has been processed and I can afford my medicines.

I have several friends who have worked as contractors for the government, working alongside public sector employees, both state and federal, who have seen a definite trend in performance. Those who are employed by the public sector work within a culture where poor performance is perfectly acceptable. It is very difficult for a public sector worker to be fired, partly thanks to unions. Now, I am not in any way against unions. However, I believe there are situations in which the unions have stepped in too far. For whatever reason, this public sector workers are getting away with lackadaisical performance, with neglecting their duties, even getting away with being blatantly rude to their clients. This apathy is built into the very culture of these places of employments. It does not seem to extend to the contractors who do not work for the state - in fact, these contractors often find themselves disgusted by the performance alongside they are meant to work.

This trend in poor performance and apathy, which so many have observed, has been seen by people in all sorts of departments, including the NIH and the New York Office of Mental Health's IT department, to name a few.

I do not know that unions are the only cause of this phenomenon. What I do know, is that I need my spend down processed, and am becoming increasingly annoyed that this state worker is dragging her feet about getting my paperwork processed, knowing that I need it processed so that I can get my medications. I also know that my non-profit private-sector social worker has done an amazing job at helping me through all of the complicated and bureaucratic paperwork imposed upon me by the state in order to get my benefits. And I also know that someone needs to be evaluating the performance of employees within the public sector and be more bold with terminations and hirings.

The "Inappropriate" Testimony

Last night on MSNBC the Ed Show spoke to a third year Georgetown Law Student named Sandra Fluke. The Catholics have a right to their religious beliefs and practices, yes, but women have a right not to have it forced on us.

The Democrats' only witness was personally rejected by the chairman as "inappropriate". A portion of the testimony she intended to present was presented on the Ed Show . It's a sad story about a woman who has permanently lost her fertility because she could not afford to pay for her hormonal contraception, which was helping to regulate her PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome).

Are Walker's actions even legal?

I want to say, "This is the most corrupt thing I've ever seen our government do," except that I feel like I say that way too frequently for that to ever be true.

I don't know all the rules. I don't know the Constitution by heart. I don't know exactly what the "requirements" were for Scott Walker to get that money. However, one would imagine that if money is given to a government to perform a certain task, that money ought to be revoked if spent otherwise, and that the member of government responsible for the decision be penalized.

Can someone explain to me exactly how this is legal?