The portion of my column not published in the BHCNews March 27 is continued eight paragraphs below
Montana's militant segment is bent on turning down Medicaid expansion for the rest of us in Montana. These politicians are acting in blind rage to block access to reasonable medical care, access we already paid for with our premium payments, otherwise known as payroll deductions for federal taxes. What turkeys.
As I described in my last column, with the onset of spring our turkey tom has begun to attack our dog whenever he sees her. He doesn't see, or doesn't seem to care, that his beak and spurs are no match for Sheila's quick slashing fangs. But even when injured and bleeding from gashes in his chest, he continues attacking, driven by a blind and instinctual drive to protect his hens. At this point, his injuries are so severe that we are concerned he may not live to fertilize eggs for our summer poultry crop. His life and the future of his potential offspring are at stake.
The same turkey politics in Helena threatens health care for thousands of Montana citizens. Like our turkey tom, our elected representatives don't seem to get it either. They, too, seem blinded by some sort of instinctual, ideological rage.
Don't these lawmakers see that we already pay for Medicaid through our taxes? If we don't expand Medicaid here in our state, then we'll be exporting our Montana dollars to pay for Medicaid expansion in other states. How does that make any sense? Some argue that Medicaid traps people in cycles of poverty. Medicaid doesn't trap people in poverty—lack of money traps people in poverty! Can't they see that most Medicaid recipients are hardworking taxpayers, who simply don't get enough income from their jobs? Don't they realize that the income threshold for denying Medicaid to families is so low that without expanded Medicaid—even with the subsidies that will be available through the health insurance exchanges in 2014—tens of thousands of Montanans will be left uninsured? Don't they recognize that we have more uninsured veterans per capita than in any other state, and that expanding Medicaid is the only reasonable way our tax dollars can be returned to serve some 7000 currently uninsured Montana veterans? What a scandal to refuse care for those who fought and paid in blood for all of us!
Some of our legislators claim that expanding Medicaid expands federal government involvement in health care. But don't they understand that Medicaid is health insurance, not health care? Health care gets provided in the exact same way, by the same hospitals and doctors that provide care to those who have other types of insurance. Furthermore, Medicaid is administrated at the state level, not from Washington: local Montanans taking care of their own.
Don't the folks in Helena know that as a form of health insurance, Medicaid is a whole lot more efficient than the commercial forms of insurance? Since Medicaid doesn't spend money on advertising or trying to deny coverage to people like the private companies do, more of the health care dollar gets spent on providing care! And do they not realize that extending this form of health insurance to 70,000 more Montanans is good for the local economy, too? A recent U of M study revealed that thousands of new jobs would be created with Medicaid expansion.
Perhaps our legislators forget that if we don't cover these Montana citizens, we'll still be paying for their care—only the care will be more expensive, and not as effective. That's because folks without insurance still get sick or injured, and eventually wind up in emergency rooms. Now that's expensive. And who pays for that waste? We do. The cost of their care now routinely is shifted to all of us through higher premiums—$1000 per year per family in Montana, and growing. Why don't our militant Helena legislators address this waste?
Maybe they are looking to states like Arkansas, who are thinking about using Medicaid dollars to buy health insurance from private insurance companies, who will pay doctors to provide care to beneficiaries. How free is enterprise with a law requiring a middleman? Rather than simply paying the health care providers directly, what they really want is pork barrel politics at its worst. Isn't it bribery to require us to buy from private companies who use our money to buy votes from politicians needing more money for their next campaign to make sure they are all on the take from the rest of us? Who is in whose pockets for what?
So when it comes to expanding Medicaid in Montana, I see a lot of turkey toms in Helena. With foolish ferocity, they are leading us down a path to a very questionable future. I suppose we can always hope that they'll come to their senses before it's too late.
The following is continued from the incomplete edition of my column in The News.
Nearly all media commentary is pro big business, and plays down the cynicism of this push to deprive care and make profit. Here are two of few exceptions, unfortunately:
Sam Hall quotes extensively from a NYT column by Paul Krugman, with nationwide Medicaid economic data:
http://blogs.clarionledger.com/samrhall/2013/03/04/medicaid-expansion-and-the-private-sector/
Here's Paul Krugman's article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/opinion/krugman-mooching-off-medicare.html
Which I quote:
Conservatives like to say that their position is all about economic freedom, and hence making government's role in general, and government spending in particular, as small as possible. And no doubt there are individual conservatives who really have such idealistic motives.
When it comes to conservatives with actual power, however, there's an alternative, more cynical view of their motivations — namely, that it's all about comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, about giving more to those who already have a lot. And if you want a strong piece of evidence in favor of that cynical view, look at the current state of play over Medicaid (click on the above link to the entire article).
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David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
graberdb@gmail.com
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
