Some fun and exciting events are going on in Utah over the next couple of weeks. Right now the Sundance Film Festival is in full swing, and next weekend we have Salt Lake Comic Con FanX. Anybody who really knows me knows what a movie geek I am, and I'm excited to be on some panels at FanX and possible meet Superman and Doctor Who. And I'm hoping to make it to at least one film at Sundance that really excites me (Experimenter, based on the same true story which inspired a short film, The Milgram Experiment, which won me my first award and played at a film festival I couldn't go to because I'd gotten a new kidney 3 days before). It's a fun and exciting time.
A lot of my life is based around the entertainment industry, and I'm not at all one to dismiss these things. Movies (both the serious, artistic kind celebrated at Sundance and the geeky, fun kind celebrated at FanX) are my life. But it's disconcerting to me that I feel something much more important is in danger of getting lost in the shuffle: the upcoming Utah general legislative session. Obviously it's a lot less fun than Sundance or FanX, and we get a lot less excited about legislators than movie and TV stars (as someone who knows a lot of legislators, in many cases I understand and even agree with this). But this isn't just some boring, humdrum business as usual political event. This is when very important decisions will be made. In some cases, life and death decisions. And every single person who thinks they don't need to be bothered because there's nothing they can do about it is not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. We can do something about it. We have to do something about it.
While I'm deeply concerned with multiple issues likely to be dealt with at this year's session, obviously I'm most concerned about Healthy Utah. The fight to bring even reasonable access to healthcare to those in the coverage gap will almost certain come to its decision point within the next 50 days or so. There's a very real danger that instead of Healthy Utah, we'll get what Rep. Brian King called "Frail Utah" in an excellent op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune: proposals by the majority of the Healthcare Reform Task Force which cover only roughly 1 tenth of what Healthy Utah does, and keep over $2 billion in Utah tax payer money from coming back to our state. It's a plan which really is intended to give extremists the appearance of compassion while leaving tens of thousands of Utahns no hope but to pray they don't get sick. Ironically, perhaps the most prominent opponent of Medicaid expansion or Healthy Utah, former House Speaker Becky Lockhart, was diagnosed with a rare illness and then passed away between the 2014 session and this one. This heartbreaking tragedy underscores just how fragile health and life are, and how none of us can just rely on staying healthy.
We can help tens of thousands of Utahns get a fair chance at healthcare. We can do it with our state's own money, and if we choose not to, we won't get 1 cent of that money back. But there's a very
real chance that we'll be passed up because of some stubborn legislators who think it's more important to deny a victory to the guy they didn't vote for. Every reasonable person should be so outraged by this that it makes it hard for them to sleep at night. It doesn't matter what your ideology is. But are we even paying attention? The instinct to choose to escape from reality rather than confront it is a natural and often necessary one. But at the wrong times it can be devastating to let what is pleasant distract us from what is important. All I'm asking is that everyone take even 1 minute to email, write or call a legislator. Even daring to risk offending someone with a Facebook status that says "I support Healthy Utah" is doing something. And if you've contacted one, contact another. The reason they can do this is because they don't expect us to get worked up or do anything about it. I and all of my fellow activists are dismissed by opponents as just a bunch of bleeding hearts whose opinions don't matter. They need to know it's not just us, it's not just activists, it's not just those who need insurance themselves, it's every Utahn who cares about their fellow human beings.
There's nothing wrong with being caught up in the excitement of fun and exciting events. I love these things. We need these things. But we have to remember the big picture, too. Just devote a couple of minutes to Healthy Utah. That's all I ask. Because if we end up with "Frail Utah", people we know and love will be hurt by it along with everyone else. And we'll all have to ask ourselves if we did enough.
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