``...Gov. Reagan's closing of the mental hospitals. That is the lasting tribute to Ronald Reagan that Californians will always be reminded of...'' dano
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Reagan followed up closing the state's mental institutions by cutting off the state's attendant care money for the disabled. So in effect anybody who needed attendants for independent living was headed back to nursing homes, back wards of county hospitals, or the morgue.
It took immediate protests in Sacramento and the Bay Area---and several news conferences---which were really teach-ins for the press by politicos in wheelchairs to get that money back. After a few weeks of almost daily coverage by the local press, Reagan announced he didn't intend to harm ``helpless shut-ins''.
Neither Reagan's `heart', nor the protest were the persuading argument. What turned the day was the cost comparisons and the need to increase county hospital budgets and state allocations for nursing homes to carry the in-coming loads. These were figures we put together with the local Assemblyman's staff, which they in turn pushed to the press and the governor's office. Attendant care money was cut off for a couple of months and then quietly restored.
So the sympathy line about Reagan's battle with Alzhiemer's has always made me laugh. When the fucker could, he killed the most needed form of in-home services---of exactly the kind that prolonged his over rated life.
If he hadn't been rich, he would have died of pneumonia years ago, strapped in bed, on an entral feeding pump and covered in bed sores, in some under funded nursing home like millions still do.
CG