Washington State Budget Cuts

I received an email detailing the proposed budget cuts in Washington. While it did not include all of them, it did detail the following:

• Reducing health coverage for up to 40,000 low-income people
• Eliminating housing, medical care and drug and alcohol treatment for 27,500 low-income individuals with physical and mental disabilities
• Eliminating adult day health care for 1,900 disabled and elderly people
• Eliminating the universal vaccine program
• Cutting community mental health treatment

This is shocking. To think that 40,000 people will no longer have health coverage. To think that people with disabilities will lose housing, medical care, and drug and alcohol treatment. The vaccine program is going out the window- which is shocking in a state that in some counties already has a vaccination refusal rate of greater than 15%.

While I know that money for our state has to come from somewhere, it is painful to see where it is coming from.

Without Little Bug, I wouldn’t be as aware of this and the impact this will make on people’s lives. It would be just a figure and maybe never even register. With my son and other adults with disabilities I have come to know, my awareness has grown. Little Bug has literally taught me more in his life than I ever learned in my life without him. I am grateful to him and for him.