Thursday, December 18, 2008

Meeting with Gov. Otter

I was one of the people that got an opportunity to meet with Idaho's Gov. "Butch" Otter when he was up here to visit on December 17th, 2008. I spoke to him about the recent decisions to cut Medicaid hours from 30hrs/week down to just 22hrs/week. This cut will have a dramatic effect on all those involved and I wanted to make sure that I tried to do as much as I could to hopefully change their minds.

The Governor listened to me as I spoke about Jamison, and why him and others like him so desperately need these hours. He told me what any one would think he would... he told me that "in these times" and so on about the state of our economy right now.

My question really now is if you take away these precious hours they need now when they are children, isn't the government going to be paying even more to help disabled adults, rather than help these children now and hopefully prevent even more spending in the future because they never got all of the assistance they needed when their brains were still developing and taking in so much more than if they were adults! These are the most critical years and yet they are considering cutting nearly 25% of their hours!!

After I spoke with the Governor they wrote a story in The Coeur d'Alene Press where it mentions both Jamison and I. It really made me happy to know that at least someone heard me, and someone felt strongly enough about my speech to recognize it. Now let's just hope that the Government really heard!


Like I said before, it is so important to make yourself heard. It doesn't take much out of your life to make a difference, even a small one. If we all did it, can you imagine the effect! Write to your Government Officials about your Medicaid hours being cut!!

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