LeFavour: Budget Panel Is ‘Heartless’

We sit in a marble tower, two blocks separate us from the offices of the Department of Health and Welfare. This morning we passed from JFAC $100 million in cuts to medical services for people with disabilities, for children and for adults with medical conditions and not enough income to afford care. If Representative Fred Wood had had his way we would have only talked about the numbers. What passed was not a plan, not a working budget but a huge cut with instructions to the Governor and Department of Health & Welfare: “Hope you can make this work.” Unlike with education budgets yesterday, none of the affected parties were brought in. No stakeholder meetings were held with the disability community, with people with chronic illnesses or with the hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses to see if this would work out/ Nicole LeFavour , Notes from the Floor. More here .

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Question: Do you agree with Rep. Nicole LeFavour that some of the budget cuts handed down by JFAC, even in this down economy, are “heartless”?