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(published in Star-Telegram April, 9, 2003)

Social Services Scraps

(The following OpEd was written by Dr. Kurt Senske.)

 

Chicken necks.

Those are the bones that our state and national leaders are tossing to public and private providers of health and human services.

We've listened to politicians complain about "bloated government budgets" from which the fat needed to be trimmed. The reality is that until now, funding for health and human services has been more like a scrawny chicken than a well-marbled steak.

For years, we who are in the business of helping the most vulnerable in our society have barely gotten by on those tough old birds.

At Lutheran Social Services of the South, reimbursements for caring for nursing home patients and child abuse victims fall short of covering our actual costs. Two-thirds of our programs lose money. Until the downturn in the economy, we have been able to make up the difference with generous contributions from folks who want to help those in need.

But now, those in charge of government budgets have decided the chicken has been, well, too substantial. They've lopped off the wings and drumsticks, torn off the thighs and carved away the breast. Then they boiled off all the meat and nutrients before presenting us with the neck.

Unfortunately, those scraps are inadequate to sustain those who care for frail, elderly residents of nursing homes, troubled and abused children, poor children with inadequate health care, and homeless, mentally ill people.

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