Medicaid personal allowance increase moves forward; death penalty debate renewed
By Fred Knapp , Reporter/Producer Nebraska Public Media
March 4, 2015, 5:16 a.m. ·
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A bill increasing Medicaid spending to allow people who rely on the program a little more spending money is advancing in the Nebraska Legislature. And the argument over whether to keep the state’s death penalty has been renewed.
It was the second day of debate on Lincoln Sen. Patty Pansing Brook’s proposal to increase monthly spending allowances for Medicaid recipients in nursing homes and other placements for the aged, blind and disabled. That allowance has been $50 a month since 1999. Supporters of the increase say that’s too little for basic personal needs like hair appointments or winter coats. Originally, the proposal would have increased that to $75 a month. Omaha Sen. Joni Craighead said she was torn by two cases of people she knows. One is a 95-year-old man who’s worked all his life and needs the help. The other, she said, is a 20-year-old unmarried mother of two who lives with their working father, although he conveniently has a different address. "She receives every federal and state public assistance that’s available – SNAP, Medicaid, very reduced housing. She spends her days on social media discussing why you should not circumcise baby boys, and why breastfeeding in public is just fine. She wears designer glasses and eats steak. She is young, healthy, and able to work. And she is not," Craighead said.
Omaha Sen. Bob Hilkemann supported the increase. He said people receiving Medicaid for disabilities are not ne’er-do-wells. Hilkemann, a retired podiatrist, talked about a young developmentally disabled woman who was one of his patients. "If everybody had the work ethic that this young lady did, this country would be great. But unfortunately she had the mind of about a seventh or eighth grader at the very best. This is a person who has to live on $50 a month for their personal income. The Bible refers to ‘the least of these.’ And I say ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’" he said.
Allowing the personal allowance to rise to $75 would have cost the state and federal government about $3 million each over the next two years. Under a compromise amendment sponsored by Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash, the increase was scaled back to $60, which Omaha Sen. John McCollister estimated would cut the cost to about $1.2 million for the state and federal governments. Senators then voted 29-12 to give the bill first round approval.
Wednesday afternoon, the Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on Sen. Ernie Chambers latest proposal to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Chambers said that from 1903 to 2010, 72 people were sentenced to death in Nebraska, but only 23 were executed. The death sentences of 31 were commuted, and others died in prison or remain on death row.
"Something so seldom used could not be a deterrent. Something so seldom used on its face was imposed arbitrarily. And the fact that nearly – well, not nearly half – 31 were commuted out of 72, that’s a high percentage. Something was not like it should be," Chambers said.
Interviewed before the hearing, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said the county attorney’s association wants the death penalty kept on the books. "We believe in those extreme circumstances where you can differentiate one case from obviously many others because of the aggravating circumstances that the body the (Legislature) has previously passed, that that should be something that we should have on the books so that a three judge panel can weigh those circumstances and determine whether we should have the ultimate penalty, which is the death penalty," he said.
The committee took no immediate action on the bill, but Sen. Les Seiler of Hastings, chairman of the committee, predicted it will be advanced to the full Legislature for debate.