The Big Ugly

 The big ugly, that's what I call the budget bill just passed by our lovely regime.

It guts food assistance, housing and low income medical care.  Probably other stuff too.

But ICE budget is increased by a lot.   I don't know the percentage.   The cruelty has become unbelievable.

The news was full of rural medical hospital people predicting doom for Oregon's medical systems.

Most rural clinics and hospitals rely heavily on medicaid funds with medicaid patients sometimes making up a large percentage of patients.  Which right there tells a story about poverty in Oregon.  But probably everywhere.  The second punch comes because people will still break their arms, get infections, get cancer and they will try to get help at the ER even without insurance.

I think its a third of Oregonians are on medicaid in some form.

Now its getting gutted I guess, along with food stamps, which also are relied on by grocers and local farmers.  A lot of these cuts won't be immediate, so the rich people will try to deflect blame when they do take affect to other things.  They're trying to also shift costs of these programs partly to states.

Nobody mentions the cuts to HUD (Housing and urban development).  Money to states for that will be cut by about half, if what I hear and read is correct.  That may mean me too.   

I don't have any idea if I will lose medical insurance.  I'm not supposed to, being a disabled poor senior.  Doesn't mean I won't though.  I have medicaid as secondary but under a sharing program.  Medicaid pays my medicare premiums.   Ha, what a mess.  What a mess I could be in by spring.   I just don't know what will be the end result.  No one does.  Nothing good for the least of us.

Let the oligarchs celebrate they'll get richer.   On the backs of the likes of me and those like me.