| David S. Bernstein informs us that Mitt Romney is aggressively courting wealthy conservative Jews for his presidential campaign. Romney's even jetting off to Israel to beef up his credentials with Jewish donors.
Apparently, though, Romney thinks a good deal less of Jews who aren't fabulously wealthy -- specifically, those who live in Massachusetts, are on Medicaid, and keep kosher. In 2003, the legislature passed a supplemental budget containing, among many other things, a modest (around $600,000) appropriation making it possible for the eight nursing homes in Massachusetts with kosher kitchens to continue providing kosher food to Medicaid recipients living there. The section (s. 85 of ch. 140 of the Acts of 2003) read:
notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, for any nursing home that provides kosher food to its residents, the division of medical assistance, in consultation with the division of health care finance and policy, is directed to approve a special innovative program, and the division of health care finance and policy, in recognition of the unique special innovative program status granted by the division of medical assistance, shall, for any nursing home that provides kosher food to its residents, establish up to a $5 per day increase to the standard payment rates to reflect the high dietary costs incurred in providing kosher food.
Romney vetoed the section. According to the Jewish Advocate, which AFAIK was the only news outlet paying attention at the time,
Romney wrote that he was vetoing it "because it unnecessarily requires an increased rate for nursing facilities."
"Unnecessarily." Tell that to Mrs. Goldberg when she's looking at pork chops for dinner again.
The legislature overrode Romney's veto, so no long-term harm was done. But here's hoping that those wealthy Jews Romney is courting will ask him some tough questions about whether he really understands what "keeping kosher" means, and why it's important, and why making it possible for poor nursing home residents to keep eating kosher food might not have been, well, "unnecessary." |
