THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

by Paul Gibbs

The 2014 mid term election wasn't good for anybody who believes in health care as a human right, or really even anyone who believes in human rights as a concept. Let's look at the ups and downs.


THE GOOD

Most of the strongest Healthy Utah or Medicaid expansion advocates in our legislature were re-elected. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, Jim Dabakis and Brian King easily cruised to victory. All Democratic incumbents in the state legislature won, and they are joined by the return of Republican supporters like Peter Knudson and Craig Hall. We also gained a new Republican supporter in Raymond Ward of Bountiful. I know Dr. Ward and I expect him to fight as hard for this as any Democrat.

We also have a new Speaker of the House, Greg Hughes, who has the huge virtue of not being Becky Lockhart. Hughes hasn't come out directly in support of Healthy Utah, but it's reasonable to be optimistic that he'll at least be more reasonable than his predecessor. In his words, "We’re really going to drill down on [Medicaid] with the guiding principle being that we do right by our constituents."


THE BAD
 It remains to be seen exactly what Hughes means by that, or what his approach will be. He vows to work with new Majority Leader Jim Dunnigan (an insurance executive), and 4 physicians in the legislature to solve the problem. Dunnigan has is hardly one of our biggest supporters, and the physicians could range from the eminently reasonable Sen. Brian Shiozawa to Rep. Mike "Sometimes healthcare kills people" Kennedy. And if he's planning on supporting alternate solutions to Healthy Utah, that could involve going back to square one in negotiations with the federal government.

We also, of course, saw a lot of our stronger opponents (including Kennedy) re-elected. And the national Republican majority in both houses essentially guarantees more bone-headed and harmful attempts at repealing the ACA. Might our legislature use this as an excuse to delay again?  While the Republicans don't have a big enough majority to make an outright repeal of the ACA likely, any progress on healthcare over the next two years will be a gargantuan task, and that includes Medicaid expansion and variations thereof. We're extremely lucky that negotiations over Healthy Utah are complete, because those states who aren't that far along are in huge trouble. And, sadly, Utah contributed to the added majority by sending Tea Party extremist Mia Love to congress. Ouch.

THE UGLY

Local voter turnout was rather low, only 24%. And our opponents had a much better election than we did. This really speaks to something I've been saying for a while: liberal apathy is as big a threat as conservative extremism. We could have made an impact just by having a half-decent turnout, but we couldn't be bothered.

To be honest, this week has been my lowest point with this cause. I'm scared about where we'll go from here. I'm beyond devastated.


WHAT DO WE DO NOW

Every single supporter has to step up. Clicking "like" on a Facebook status doesn't make you a supporter, and it certainly doesn't make you an activist. We need you writing emails, going to events, everything you can do. No excuses. It's all on the line. We can still do this, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON who supports this has to act in some way.

Email Hughes and Dunnigan. Tell them you supporter Healthy Utah, not any alternate plan that covers fewer people. Because if we don't fight this with all we have, it's over.

Greg Hughes: greghughes@le.utah.gov 
Jim Dunnigan: jdunnigan@le.utah.gov