The Good Friday massacre
As the debate rages over whether health care is a right or a privilege, House Minority Leader John Rusche couches the conversation in a different light.
What would Jesus do?
“If we truly are a Christian nation, as most of these people are willing to vote, let’s step up and say it for real — through our actions, and not just through our words,” he said.
In Lewis and Nez Perce counties, which Rusche represents, there are about 1,600 people who are part of the gap population — the 78,000 Idahoans who can’t qualify for the state insurance health exchange, or Medicaid. “Statistically, two of those people will die.”
The Christian thing to do, he said, would be for lawmakers to help folks get health insurance coverage. “What about the freedom to have a healthy life?”
On Good Friday, Rusche’s brand of Christianity was stoned to death by Republicans on the House floor. And they didn’t even have the compassion to use raw potatoes.
The Senate, before leaving town, gave the House an opportunity to take a positive step forward toward helping the gap population. The Senate proposal gave a green light to begin negotiations with federal officials to provide subsidized health coverage for the poor.
But House Republicans, on a party-line vote, said no dice. Apparently, it had too much of the smell of Obamacare. So, the Legislature ended up with where it started the session — nothing.
Rep. Luke Malek of Coeur d’Alene, explaining his vote to the Spokesman-Review’s Betsy Russell, said, “We did not have the votes — I counted. When we started the session, there was absolutely no talk that we were going to do anything about the gap, and we took this issue almost all the way to the finish line this year, and that gives me a lot of hope that we’ll do something sooner to solve this problem.”
That means the 78,000 victims of this Good Friday Massacre will have to wait another year before any action is taken.
Russell reports that House Speaker Scott Bedke of Oakley has promised to appoint a bipartisan working group to start meeting in May to develop “a solution for the gap population.”
Does anyone feel comfort from those words? Anyone?
The working group might as well hold off until after the November election. If Republicans win the White House and hold onto Congress, then Obamacare may become a historical footnote and everybody can forget about the notion of Medicaid expansion. But if Republicans nominate Donald Trump or Sen. Ted Cruz — the wife attackers — there’s a good chance Hillary Clinton will win. Then we’ll have, potentially, eight more years of Obamacare.
“I would not have a ghost of a chance of repealing the Affordable Health Care Act, getting rid of Medicare, or anything that we as a society have decided is what we do to take care of each other,” Rusche said. “To continually fight, rather than make it work, might make good politics, but it’s bad policy.”
The big winner, at least at the moment, is Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, who has been brow-beating legislators into submission on this issue. He has a funny way of celebrating his victory, chiding legislators for being “steadfastly unwilling to consider market-based solutions” to the gap problem.
“Such solutions included ideas to connect poor people with community organizations, which would actually help lift them out of poverty. Nor were legislators willing to remove barriers to purchasing health insurance across state lines, or to make medical care more accessible and therefore less expensive.”
If Hoffman’s gig with the freedom foundation ever ends, he might want to see if he could find a career as a drill sergeant. In an Idaho Freedom Foundation news release, again issued on Good Friday, Hoffman described the session overall as, “Awful. Terrible. Pathetic. Rotten. Miserable. Disappointing.”
I CAN’T HEARRRRRR YOU!
“For lawmakers who pride themselves on conservatism, they failed to pass tax relief and instead went on a spending spree,” he said. “They rejected proposals to increase education choice. They failed to improve government transparency and accountability. And they made the state ever more dependent on the federal government.”
For Republican legislators, Hoffman’s boot camp will begin in May — possibly about the time Bedke’s working group starts deliberations on the gap population.
•••
Chuck Malloy is a native Idahoan and longtime political reporter and editorial writer. He is a former political editor with the Post Register of Idaho Falls and a former editorial writer with the Idaho Statesman. He may be contacted at: ctmalloy@outlook.com