Someone decided that it would be a good idea to take pictures of bloggers in the process of, well, blogging. The photos are actually pretty good, but that probably has much to do with the dramatic lighting and the general attractiveness of the subjects. I’m pretty sure I don’t look nearly as sexy in the glow of my computer screen. My desk also isn’t terribly photogenic, what with all the tchotchkes and piles of old mail cluttering it up. You’ll also never catch me blogging without a shirt on. Ever. 

Since it’s unlikely I’ll ever be featured in a photo spread of sexy bloggers, you’ll just have to imagine me looking intently thoughtful as i compose these posts. 

Cuts in health care and human services are likely to be part of any solution to the state budget crisis. But as the Star Tribune points out, Minnesotans with disabilities are already coping with previous cuts to personal care services. Those cuts were enacted a couple years ago after after a legislative audit revealed some instances of fraudulent billing in the personal care attendant program. The actual incidence of PCA fraud was relatively low, but it was enough to get the attention of both the media and legislators. Now, the Republican-controlled Legislature is promising to closely examine the budget allocation of every state-funded service.

The PCA program is one of the bigger pieces of the human services budget pie, which makes it a ripe target for budget hawks. It’s not clear, however, that PCA services can be cut further without seriously jeopardizing the health and independence of people with disabilities. The disability community in Minnesota is more politically active than in most states, but I’m not sure how receptive legislators will be to their advocacy efforts. Stories like the one  in the Strib undoubtedly help put a human face on the abstract talk of public finances and I expect to see more of this in the coming months. Still, I will be quite surprised if PCA services (and the private duty nursing services I use) emerge untouched in the coming budget battle.

All the fuss surrounding the iPhone coming to Verizon strikes me as overblown. I’ve used AT&T for a couple years and only a handful of calls have dropped on me, but I’m also not a heavy phone user. The tech industry is by nature prone to hyperbole, but does this news really warrant so much free press for both Verizon and Apple? As much as I like reading tech news, I can do without some of the “news” that is little more than disguised press releases.

My workweek ended with the Annual Malfunction of The Van’s Automatic Door. Of course, this is a really inconvenient time to miss work for a trip to the repair shop. I really need an executive assistant to take care of these things for me. I’m going to spend the weekend trying not to be crabby and probably not entirely succeeding.

When last year’s legislature passed a law giving the next governor power to expand Medicaid, they probably didn’t anticipate that the signing ceremony for that executive order would be one of the first big political stories of the new year. Several protesters showed up to express their displeasure at the governor and “Obamacare”,  but Dayton defused the tension by allowing some of the protesters to express their opinions. The opponents recited the standard Tea Party propaganda that government has no role in providing health care and that churches and the community are quite capable of providing health care to those in need. Oddly enough, no church leaders were present to offer a detailed plan on how they would fund and administer a Medicaid substitute.

The Tea Party’s enthusiasm for some undefined form of charity care seems suspect. I don’t think they’re truly interested in such a thing, but telling the poor that they have to fend for themselves doesn’t earn one good PR. Better to utter some vacuous platitudes about faith and Christian can-doism. All that’s well and good until somebody has to pay the $75,000 hospital bill.

Elections matter, even if they’re decided by a few thousand votes. And this is simply good policy. Tens of thousands of vulnerable Minnesotans will get access to better health care and the rickety GAMC program can finally be consigned to the graveyard of poorly conceived ideas.