Dear Editor:
In recent weeks, several commenters in the opinion section have made broad statements about Medicaid cuts while ignoring numerous states’ legislative testimonies, and federal documentation detailing where Medicaid dollars have been going in recent years. In just one state for example, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General found that, in less than one year, the state of California had improperly claimed $52.7 million in federal Medicaid funds for coverage of illegal immigrants. Such misused medicaid dollars should have gone to the vast number of the most vulnerable individuals, whose tax-paying families love, support and provide life-long care for them. The insensitivity and apparent ignorance of commenters who do not do their own due diligence, yet continue to state “facts” with bias and fragmented information is striking. Thousands of our most fragile US citizens, including our own family member affected with profound autism, are adversely affected by flagrant misuse of federal funds. Medicaid dollars should not be going to able bodied citizens in our country, nor to millions of non-citizens at the expense of the weakest members of society who live here legally.
Joan Kelley
Gardner, Kan.
