See this excerpt from a Washingon Post.com article:
Senate Passes Plan to Cut $35 Billion From Deficit
By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 4, 2005; Page A01
The Senate approved sweeping deficit-reduction legislation last night that would save about $35 billion over the next five years by cutting federal spending on prescription drugs, agriculture supports and student loans, while clamping down on fraud in the Medicaid program....
It would shave payments to some farmers by 2.5 percent, while eliminating a major cotton support program and trimming agriculture conservation spending. A proposal to limit payments to rich farmers failed yesterday. The measure passed largely along party lines, with only two Democrats voting for it and five Republicans voting against it....
Among the deepest cuts are those hitting Medicare and Medicaid. The House bill would cut the growth of Medicaid by $12 billion over five years and by nearly $48 billion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The Senate would trim spending on Medicaid and the related Children's Health Insurance Program by $4.3 billion through 2010, and $14 billion through 2015. The Senate measure mitigates cuts to health care programs for the poor by shifting the bulk of cost savings to Medicare, which would be cut by $5.7 billion over five years. That savings would balloon to $40.6 billion through 2015.
..some health care experts say new premiums and co-payments that would be imposed on the working poor would drive millions of families out of the Medicaid system entirely....
"From a beneficiary's perspective, [the changes] are hugely significant," said Jocelyn Guyer, senior program director at Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families, who estimated that 6 million children will be affected by the changes.
Under the House plan, states could raise co-payments for Medicaid recipients below the poverty line from $3 to $5 per doctor's visit or prescription, then keep raising them with the medical inflation rate. For the working poor just above the poverty line, there would be no limit to higher co-payments, although out-of-pocket health costs are not supposed to exceed 5 percent of a family's income. Health policy analysts say that protection may not amount to much as poor families will have difficulty tracking health care expenses that closely.
For the first time, poor children and pregnant women -- currently shielded from any out-of-pocket payments -- could be billed for some medications or hospital visits for non-emergency care.
How compassionate are conservatives toward the poor and working class?
Surely there must be other ways to fight fraud in Medicare and raise money for Katrina victims without reducing school lunch programs,adding co-pays for doctors visits halting foster care payments for relatives of children who are removed from their biological parents? More childen will go hungry {or hungrier}. More children and families will put off going to the doctors until their conditions gets worse. More sick people will go to already overcrowded hospital emergency rooms for non-emergency medical conditions. And more children who are removed from their birth parents will be traumatized by going to live with strangers rather than to live with family members who can't afford to feed or cloth another child. {btw, foster care payments are usually 3 times the amount of money as welfare payments}.