his wife debra wiped out financially. three years ago they had rolled in access, arizona s version of medicaid and it would pay for a transplant. now he has risen to number three on the liver waiting list but the state will no longer pay for the operation. i ve paid taxes all my working life here and i guess i get a little bit irritated. reporter: pennington is one of 96 potential organic transplant patients in arizona who now must scramble to raise their own money. arizona just simply does not have any available funds and we all know that our access program is far more generous than a lot of the states surrounding us. reporter: arizona lawmakers considered restoring funding for medicaid transplants but they ultimately decided against it. mainly because they concluded that many transplants have a low rate of success. i got a heart in june 14th of 06 and i m doing fantastic j but these transplant survivors say lawmakers are relying on
now, you might agree with some of those proposals and not agree with others. but they are choices. she took $538 million from medicaid and gave $541 million in business tax cuts. i m asking you, are you comfortable with a government that have says 96 people are not going to get life saving treatment because corporations needed an extra 2% tax break? imagine if someone you knew and cared about was in that 96? is that the kind of government you want? apparently for some arizonians it is not. because they have started a drive to recall governor brewer. they held a demonstration in phoenix on saturday. they were joined by a group of transplant survivors who came to voice their support for the arizona 96. joining me now is an msnbc contributor. dave, are these medicaid cuts