OPINION: Who are we if we don’t try? Crushing medical bills and helping a neighbor
Written by Marianne Mansfield
On Wednesday, April 22, 2015 I had breakfast with a group of like-minded folks, many of whom are also friends. We met at George’s Restaurant in downtown St. George. The weekly event is billed as ‘Conversation Over Easy.’ This group meets every Wednesday at 9:30 and is open to the public.
Not uncharacteristically, I was running late so I drove there in a bit of a hurry. I dialed in Diane Rehm’s news talk show on 107.9 FM, the Utah NPR radio station and peeled toward town. That morning’s topic was the expected explosion of influence that Super Pacs will brandish in the 2016 presidential elections. It was a fascinating but disheartening discussion, at least the part I heard before I arrived at my destination. Here is a link where you can listen to the entire show.
My take-away from listening was a sense of overwhelming frustration. We can deny no longer that federal elections, and likely most state and local ones as well, are largely bought and paid for by the Koch brothers and their ilk. Since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Super Pacs in their 2010 decision in Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission, our elections have smacked of glad-handing and wink-wink fundraising and corporate contributions to supposed independent think tanks and issues-oriented groups. Those are the same groups that buy advertising and do robo-calls and internet campaign pushes. How sad. How gravely tragic.
The counter to my lament, of course, is that among our most precious benefactions from the Constitution, and later the Women’s Suffrage movement leading to the 19th amendment to the Constitution, is the vote. We vote. That’s how we balance out the Super Pacs. I can’t even type those words without shaking my head in dismay. Talk about the playing field being built on the side of vertical glacier.
So, back to my breakfast pals. There was the usual talk about politics and the environment. It felt good to be among folks who called the Affordable Care Act by its rightful name and not Obamacare, spat out the side of one’s mouth.
A man I did not know began passing around a packet of paper, three pages in all. The first a page that this gentleman had picked up in a convenience store. It detailed the plight of Megan Birk, a 21 year old girl and DSU student, who is in desperate need of a new heart. It was a description that broke my heart. She is asking for donations to help her family cover the enormity of the medical bills associated with her fight to live. For those of you interested, donations can be made to Megan’s Heart for Life Supplemental Needs Trust Fund at Cache Valley Bank.
The gentleman, Carl Palmer, stood before us and decried the necessity of families and individuals being forced into using plastic jars in conveniences stores to collect spare change to help defray crushing medical costs associated with catastrophic illness.
The second page in Mr. Palmer’s packet was a synopsis of the Medicaid Expansion debacle visited on us by Governor Herbert and some Utah legislators. I am not close to being an expert on this topic, but the math really does seem simple. We expand Medicaid and send back less money to the Federal Government while covering more needy citizens of Utah.
Then Palmer let us in on his plan. It seems that our Governor Herbert is planning to call a special session this summer to re-consider the whole Medicaid Expansion question. Carl invited those of us who care about this issue as he does to join him in walking a gurney from St. George to Salt Lake City and the steps of our capital just as the special session is convened. In this manner, Palmer hopes to convey to those who make the decisions that there is a grass roots concern about the availability of healthcare for people like Megan Birk. He has the pre-planning done; he just needs more people power.
I’ll admit it. I turned away from his idea at first. What good could this do other than put a number of us at risk of heat stroke if we tried to propel a gurney of all things, up I-15. I’ve seen similar such symbolic efforts before. The lawmakers appear, have some pictures taken, make some promises and go back inside their statehouses to business as usual.
And here is where my earlier morning radio listening came into play. It’s the Super Pacs that call the shots, not a bunch of retirees from St. George. That was my first thought. Get over it, Carl. This just isn’t going to make a difference.
And then my eyes drifted back to the side-by-side pictures of Megan Birk on the flyer. Healthy and vibrant in the first. Connected to a spaghetti bowl of tubes, staring numbly into the camera in the second.
So, it might not work. But who are we if we don’t at least try? Who are we if we sit silently by as the Utah Legislature shies from the risk of playing ball with the Feds, at the expense of our most needy citizens?
Who are we if we don’t try to push a gurney up I-15 to express our passion about the how people live, and die, in our state?
And who are we if we let the Super Pacs steal our Constitutional right to determine how we are governed?
Who are we, anyway?
If you are interested in learning more from Carl about his grass roots Gurney to Salt Lake, here is his contact information. And don’t call him Mr. Palmer. That, he maintains, is how his father should be addressed.
435-632-6160
Marianne Mansfield has lived in Southern Utah since 2010. She and her husband followed their grandchildren to this area fromMichigan. In her former life she was a public school educator. More than half of her career was spent as an elementary principal, which is why her response to most challenges is, “This isn’t my first rodeo.” She grew up in Indiana, and attended Miami of Ohio,Ball State University and Michigan State. She is a loyal MSU Spartan and Detroit Tiger baseball fan. She has been writing fiction and opinion since her retirement in 2004.
