M IS FOR MILLION

by Paul Gibbs

The op-ed by Healthy Utah opponent J. Scott Moody in today's Deseret News would actually be quite funny if so many lives weren't on the line. Moody repeats the same old drivel about why Medicaid expansion is bad for our state, but this time he does it with a study by a right-wing group called the Federalism In Action Project, which he calls "definitive."  Oh, I get it: the multiple other studies which included partnerships with respectable, neutral organizations like Dan Jones & Associates weren't definitive, because they didn't reach the conclusion he wanted them to. This opens up a whole new world for me. My past is full of things which didn't turn out the way I wanted. But it turns out those results weren't definitive, because I don't like them. In fact, I never should have gotten that kidney transplant, I should have just waited for the definitive diagnosis which said two aspirin would have made me feel better.

The most glaring error in Moody's op-ed has been corrected, but it's still indicative of the sloppiness of the entire undertaking: he quoted Governor Herbert as claiming that Healthy Utah will cost $258 billion in the first year. The actually number is $258 million, with an M. That's a big difference. As my brother Christian put it, 258 million seconds is roughly 8 years. 258 billion seconds is roughly 8,000 years. We're talking about a monumental disparity of numbers here. And even if we are to dismiss this as a typo, it's far from the only problem with Moody's article. There is no evidence whatsoever to support his ideas of reduced household incomes in any of the studies commissioned by the state or anyone else except the one cited by Moody. The article is partisan, poorly researched, and just flat out wrong.

Second, Moody seems to utterly ignore, as all opponents of expansion do, that this is made up of money already going out in Utah taxes. It comes back here, or it goes somewhere else. But we keep paying them either way. How is this not relevant to discussing the cost of the program? Oh, I see. I missed his use of the term "redistributing", which is code for "communism". That's how we know it's evil.

Third, Moody says "you don't need a Phd in economics" to see his point. That's probably why none of the Phd's who've studied it have come to conclusions remotely matching his. Moody himself makes no mention of his education in his credentials. Why do you suppose that is? Does he have the education to be qualified as a credible economist? I honestly have no idea. But I know I'm going to trust multiple Phds over one guy who won't tell me what his qualifications are or are not.

Fourth, Moody utterly ignores the impact not passing Healthy Utah will have on the poor and sick. Isn't that relevant? Are studies like the one by Harvard Medical School which says 316 Utahns per year will die without expansion kind of an important part of the debate? Or was that study not definitive because it had too many Phds behind it?

Opponents of Medicaid expansion and Healthy Utah continue to impugn and attack those who are coming up with the real numbers, tossing out the Obamacare boogeyman as if mentioning the name of a president who is unpopular in our state cancels out legitimate research by qualified experts. They flaunt their own lack of qualifications to show they're just regular folks. But they're not. Regular folks don't make a living distributing bogus studies which are called "non-partisan" while flaunting their partisan ideology in the name of the organization itself. Regular folks work jobs which pay too little and don't offer them health coverage, and they get sick, and without healthcare, they die. The real effect of Medicaid expansion or Healthy Utah is that this won't be true. And I'm praying for the day when I have to make that correction in my opinion piece.