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Crist's compassion

This is a story about what's wrong with government and why elections matter. And, in the spirit of the holiday season, it has a happy ending.

The Miami Herald's Carol Marbin Miller wrote this week about a blind 12-year-old boy named Kevin who has severe cerebral palsy and a shunt in his brain. He lives in a North Miami Beach group home for severely disabled children, and his doctors say he needs special thermal blankets to keep warm. The cost: $360 a year.

The state Agency for Persons with Disabilities refused to pay, a decision so indefensible a medical supply company has been supplying the blankets at no charge. It seems a private company hired by the state to control costs had concluded Kevin did not need the blankets. It did not examine him, and its employees did not talk to his mother or his doctors before making the decision. But the state said no anyway, wrapping itself in plenty of red tape. It also spent thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight efforts to overturn the decision and get $360 for the blankets for Kevin.

Gov.-elect Charlie Crist read the Herald's story about Kevin's plight and reached his own conclusion. First the outgoing attorney general called his current office and ordered his lawyers to get out of a legal battle he called "unconscionable." Then he wrote a personal check for $360 to pay for Kevin's blankets for a year.

By the end of the day, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities had an epiphany. Even though it estimates Kevin's blankets will cost $1,000 a year, it miraculously found state money to cover the bill.

There are broader issues here about the human cost of hiring a private company to figure out ways for the state to save money. But today's message isn't that complicated. The incoming governor's common sense and compassion solved a problem that government bureaucracy couldn't. Crist won't be able to solve all of the state's issues so simply and directly, but his instincts should serve him well. And in the meantime, one very disabled little boy named Kevin will keep his blankets.

[Last modified December 8, 2006, 22:03:38]