Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Cycle That Keeps The Low-Income Oppressed

 Bisera Rozic is a DePaul University student majoring in Economics and a PCG intern.

What's a better way of showing you care about seniors in an economy that's double-dipping into recession than cutting Illinois Cares Rx?

Our seniors and people with disabilities are facing hardships as is trying to get by. The high cost of prescriptions is making it difficult to take care of their health and programs such as Illinois Cares Rx were put in place to ease the pain. Thursday, June 14, 2012, Governor Quinn decided that he needed $1.6 billion worth of Medicare cuts to help his $2.7 billion worth of cuts plan fill Illinois' budget deficit. These are Medicare cuts that will leave hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans to scramble for ways of affording high costs of prescriptions; however, the loopholes that exist and allow the rich to get richer, we're supposed to turn a blind eye to that.



What Illinois Cares Rx did was assist seniors and people with disabilities with paying for their prescriptions. For those that have Medicare, Illinois Cares Rx provides seniors and those with disabilities with extra help paying their co-insurance, annual deductible, and monthly premium. Those without Medicare were also provided with assistance through Illinois Cares Rx Basic and Illinois Cares Rx Plus; the difference between the two programs is based on qualifications.

The Sun-Times reports that the state would get $290 million from hospitals after the cuts.

In a time when we should be attempting to alleviate the hardships our neighbors are facing, Governor Quinn decided to take away a program that assists 180,000 seniors afford their medication. It is unfortunate to see our basic moral values deteriorate. Faith taught us to care for one another and through programs such as Illinois Cares Rx we were caring for those that were unable to care for themselves.




No comments:

Post a Comment