Guessing which prescribed medications you can live without

This could be part of Disability 101 also, because it's a classic example of the political issues of being disabled in America. The links cover the TennCare health cuts of last year and how they're affecting people now, but the crisis exists similarly everywhere.

NPR coverage. TennCare now allows only five prescriptions per month, and only two of them can be brand-name medications.

Jeremey Sherrod is one of the pharmacists. He says the last few months have been particularly difficult, especially for the TennCare patients who've had to cut back on their prescriptions.

"You know it's hard to tell them whether to treat their diabetes or their congestive heart failure. Which one are they going to die of the quickest if they don't take their medication? It's like we're making the decision of life and death in a sense, and we're not meant to do that," he says.

(Thanks to Mark Siegel on The 19th Floor for the link.)

TennCare documentary. Nashville journalist and filmmaker Sharon Cobbs' video shows how Governor Bredesen and his administration made the TennCare cuts knowing how much they would hurt, but planned to use the surplus created with these unnecessary cuts to manufacture the illusion of helping people by increasing TennCare enrollment just before the next election. It's a 40-minute video. Watch the first 8 minutes, if you can't watch or listen to the whole thing.

Finally, the Faces of TennCare. Joon Powell documents with photography dozens of people forced to choose which medications they can live without or, dropped from the program completely, simply forced to do without.