Heartbreaking murder-suicide story in Washington

[flamingyouth]

I posted this in the Texas GOP asks for ADA cuts thread, but I think it deserves its own thread.

It enrages me that a man can work his entire life, then lose his job and health care, plus we can't even fucking provide a bi-polar 5-year-old child with medicine. All the while our empty shirt of a leader struts around... :grr:
http://komotv.com/stories/32531.htm

[pop goes the weasel]

1. Of course the child's natural parents

were in Texas, where the freaking Republican party is patting itself on the back for slashing enrollments in the child health insurance program.

It is surprising that Washington didn't have any better assistance than Texas, though.

[flamingyouth]

5. I noticed that too

The article didn't say, but I suspect the grandparents had moved up here from Texas as well.

Washington recently suffered some draconian cuts to its Basic Health Plan as well as some to the Evergreen Health Insurance Plan (EHIP - which helped cover people with HIV/AIDS and cancer).

And then we gave the Boeing Co. billions of dollars so they can build their Dreamliner jet here.:grr:

[pop goes the weasel]

8. amazing, that

That is, the way that states can come up with funding for bidness when they can't come up with the funding for basic social needs. Last year, just before Texas' already skeletal mental health programs were gutted, Gov. Goodhair announced Texas would be shelling out millions of dollars to study the freaking genome of the cow. Sure, an intersting science project, but an interesting project for private business to fund. The consequences of the de-funding of mental health care have been, to put it mildly, deadly.

[flamingyouth]

10. The sheer human toll of our social services cutbacks is overwhelming

I see it almost everyday through volunteer work I do with a homeless shelter here in Seattle.

Most of our clients are married families with two parents both working. Often, they had a major financial setback (a job loss, foreclosure, a health crisis) that depleted their finances. Because so many people live paycheck-to-paycheck, they have no safety net. So they lose their home or apartment. They put their belongings in storage. They couch surf until they run out of places to stay.

Finally, they end up not being able to pay their storage locker rent any longer, and the facility auctions off everything, so they are literally left with little more than the clothes on their backs. We see this every single day.

And then they come to the shelter, where they can stay for 30 days while we try to help them find temporary housing. And good luck getting federally subsidized Section 8 housing; the waiting list for that is years long, and that "compassionate conservative" piece of shit has just about cut that into oblivion. Fucking heart-breaking.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. The American Psychiatric Association says...

That financial problems are the #1 cause of psychiatric maladies in the US. Look for more of this.

[Kanary]

4. Do you happen to have a link for that?

I'd like to see it. It sounds rather radical for the APA to say, but if they did, then it's hopeful.

Kanary

[flamingyouth]

6. I know it was one factor in my own husband's suicide

He ran up tremendous credit card debt in the months before he died, and I had no idea.

I just look at this poor man, who had obviously worked hard all of his life, only to end up at the end of his rope like this. I cannot imagine the desperation he must have felt in those final days and hours. And his wife - she has MS. Who will take care of her? :cry:

[wellstone dem]

3. I am weeping

anyone who has tried to get mental health care for a child knows how fucked up the system is....and I haven't used the "f" word in 15 years. You wait months for an appointment. Medication has been tested on adults and no one knows what works for kids. And you watch the kids get worse. This is so wrong.

[flamingyouth]

7. I know, I have been weeping off and on all day

I read this first thing this morning and just burst into tears - of sadness and rage. It's one of the most horrible, gut-wrenching stories I have ever heard in my life.

[daligirrl]

12. What is really sad. . .

Is that the current adminstration will welcome this type of solution. Remember in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" the words of Ebenezer Scrooge on the poor: ". . . what about the poor? Let them die and reduce the excess population!"

[flamingyouth]

13. Good point

These people make Scrooge look positively benevolent by comparison!

[daligirrl]

14. There is a story from about a year ago. . .

here in Indiana. A 12 year old mentally handicapped girl was living with a foster family. Her mother was mentally ill and incarcerated for several minor offences. She died in custody and they completely cut of the kid's SS money, because her mother died. The foster family is still keeping the child, because she had no where else to go except into state custody. They were frantic, because they couldn't afford it. Fortunately, private individuals stepped in after it was on the news, and they have been getting some help. But the family that was fostering her had to go on the local news and bitch about how poorly the Social Security people had treated them. And the government still didn't do anything to help them, in fact were very obnoxious and defensive on the TV interview!

[flamingyouth]

15. Heartbreaking

Unbelievable. You just don't know what to do when you hear something like that. How bad are things going to have to get here before we demand change from our government?

[daligirrl]

16. I've been looking for the link to that story. ..

Can't find it. . . but if you could have seen the director of social services justifying it. . . she said something like, "We can't take care of every child that a drug addict brings into the world." It was infuriating, and that is what instigated the outpouring of private support that these people got." From what I understand, they got more than enough.

[flamingyouth]

17. 'We can't take care of every child'

Yet, hey, corporations, have some more tax cuts! Motherfucking hell...:grr:

[daligirrl]

18. You started me thinking about something. . .

I'm going to start a new thread. . . you are good at getting people fired up, flamingyouth.

[flamingyouth]

19. Well, I'm glad someone else is fired up now too!

You go for it!:hi:

[Rose Siding]

9. This reporter is good

She acknowledged the logical conclusion: "This is a story of corporate downsizing, unemployment, health care coverage for the few, and mental illness."

That doesn't happen much anymore.

[flamingyouth]

11. I thought it was well done too

I couldn't bring up the video earlier, for some reason. I don't usually care for KOMO, but this was extraordinarily done.

[fortyfeetunder]

20. Another travesty in my community

I am beyond words. Just speechless.