Patients, Caregivers and Community Leaders Rally to Restore Medi-cal Care to California’s Disabled and Elderly.
In the tradition of Disability Rights Movement patients, caregivers, human rights activists, and community leaders, Congressman Bob Filner, Lorena Gonzalez of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council and others will gather on Friday, April 6, 2012 at 11 a.m. to protest the state-wide budget cuts affecting millions of disabled patients and the jobs of their caregivers. ]
The rally will take place at the Medi-Cal office located at 690 Oxford Street in Chula Vista, Calif.
This is the third rally in a series of community and labor organized events highlighting the struggle of 22-year old disabled patient, Raul Carranza, whose mission it is to call attention to the life-threatening effects of budget cuts on not only his life, but all disabled patients whose nursing care hours have been cut due to budget pressures.
With Governor Jerry Brown’s increased spending on California’s correctional system over disabled patients lives, people like Raul Carranza will be forced out of their homes with loved ones and into nursing homes, while leaving their home health care workers out of a job.
Raul’s younger brother Pablo, who also suffers from Muscular Dystrophy, will also lose his vital nursing care coverage hours after turning 21 in September.
“Your 21st birthday should be one of the greatest days of your life, but because of people like Jerry Brown and companies like Medi-Cal, it marks the start of a battle for the lives of every person that they consider a burden on this world,” said Carranza. “A young adult does not belong in a nursing home. Despite what they may think, we do have ambitions, goals and dreams. We have the right to live our lives on our terms! That is what we are fighting for!”
Occupy Medi-Cal will be demanding full restoration to Raul Carranza’s nursing hours and a call to end all cuts to disabled and elderly patients health care.This protest will also serve as a forum for patients, nurses, caregivers and community leaders to speak out about the negative effect these cuts have on not just the elderly and the disabled, but also on their families, friends, caregivers and health care workers.
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For more information about Raul’s story and media resources go here.
Media Contacts: Sarah Saez, saezsarah@gmail.com or Raul Carranza raulecarranza@gmail.com or (619) 392-9797
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
The problem is, there is only so much money that you can take from taxpayers and give away to others. Once the number of those “others” receiving the money begins to outstrip the number of dollars that can be taken by force from taxpayers without fomenting a revolution, you begin running into these confrontations between groups demanding their entitlements.
32 percent of all welfare cases in the United States are in California, even though we only represent 12 percent of the total U.S. population. Even with payouts 2 1/2 times greater than our population, the answer is always we must pay more.
California’s cost of living compared to wages is so disproportionate that it makes many more residents eligible for social services. Duh. As if you didn’t know that?
It might not be anyone’s fault but my own, but I’m disappointed that I didn’t hear about it earlier.
I was at this event today! 100 people chanting, yelling, supporting the rights of all disabled people in California! We called both Gov. Jerry Brown’s office and DHCS Director Toby Douglas from the event.
Hey, a message to all the “Tim Collings” in the world: “The problem is, there is only so much money that you can take from taxpayers and give away to others. ” ???? Why is it that the “1 percent” just don’t understand your point? Tell me why THEY do not understand that hording MOST of the wealth of the whole world, and rigging all of our legal, electoral, and economic systesms for THEIR own benefit, is not a problem. And, while you are at it, tell us all why YOU don’t get it.
We should not be tinkering with minor reforms like a “millionaires tax”. We should be in open rebellion against the oligarchy. We should be organizing to EXPROPRIATE all the horded wealth and all their “legal” assets. All the wealth of the world is derived from the undercompensation of the millions of us working people who create all the goods and services. IT IS OUR WEALTH and the 1 percent do nothing in life but STEAL it.
In a real democracy, this type of THEFT would not be legal.
@Monty Kroopkin: I own a small business that provides a decent living to around 35 people, including myself. We don’t have any leftover money after we cover all that payroll and related expenses, but we provide a living to those 35 people, and then on top of that all of us, our employees and I, pay income taxes that the government demands from us to give away to others, perhaps people like you. We also are making it possible for about 40 elderly vulnerable people to continue living in their homes and not have to move to nursing homes.
What have YOU done for others that is real and meaningful?
A “decent” living? Chuckle. Home health care without a CNA or HHA certification? Those jobs start at minimum wage! You make me laugh! Or your employees can spend thousands of dollars at a rip-off school to get a CNA, then an HHA, to make a couple of dollars more an hour with few or no benefits. Define “decent” sir! Nursing facilities used to provide that training…and employees were paid while they were given that training. I was a CNA years ago. Now companies like your have such a stranglehold on our government that you no longer have to provide training…it’s on the backs of your employees…before you even hire them! What’s decent about that?
Just to be clear: I am nowhere NEAR being in the 1%. I just earn a living, and not a plush one, either.
Tim, I’ve worked all my life. Not that it has ANYTHING to do with what I said about YOU not getting it. You are standing on IMMORAL ground.
So do you work for the government and consume some of those tax dollars that we’re talking about? What’s moral about that, if so? I pay my taxes and I don’t have much left over afterwards. I don’t have a guaranteed pension and retirement healthcare. Do you? Did my taxes pay for it?
Well, everybody could spend endless amounts of time replying to posts by fascist anti-social neaderthals, and never convince any of those types that society is worth collectively investing and funding, et cetera, nor convince them that they are hypocrits because they actually LOVE to support “government funding” of the mass murder machine (our military and para-military police forces here and worldwide) and they LOVE to support “tax dollars” going to subsidize the oil companies and the whole array of global corporate “persons” – who turn around and bribe our “democracy” into oblivion.
But the demonstration yesterday against the cuts in vital services, in this case Medi-Cal and In Home Support Services (IHSS), was important. It shows that people here in San Diego understand that healthcare is a fundamental human right, just like freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and association are fundamental human rights. It shows that people here understant that our government has become a criminal organization, serving the needs of the banksters and robber barons of the 1 percent, not the needs of the people. And it shows that more and more people are willing to fight back and demand a democratic society.
Video of Congressman Bob Filner at Medical Rally for Raul Carranza.
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