CADILLACS, PINTOS AND YUGOS

by Paul Gibbs

Healthy Utah finally got its committee hearing on Wednesday, March 4, in the Utah House Business and Labor Committee. This was a little bit like having Olympic figure skating judged bu plumbers. But this bizarre non-sewuiter was no mere chance: it was a committee stocked with far right-wingers like Rep. Jacob Anderegg, and one one where "Utah Cares" sponsor Jim Dunnigan would have a lot of imfluence. It was a hearing, but not a faor one, and despite extensive expert testimony and overwhelming evidence, Healthy Utah lost.

In presenting his "Utah Cares" plan, Dunnigan admitted that Utah's Primary Care Network (PCN), on which his plan heavily relies, is "not a Cadillac plan". In my testimony, I countered that it isn't even a Pinto plan. Later, Dunnigan compared his plan to a Yugo.

The problem with "Utah Cares" is that PCN provides unbelievably weak and liimited coverage. No specialty care. No behavioral health care. No hospital care (my friend Clare Richardson couldn't even get help with an ingrown toenail). Very limited ER and prescription drug coverage. It's only because of a motion by Rep. Edward Redd that it now includes Mental Health care (which raises the level of care from "patthetic" to "poor"). Perhaps Dunnigan's Yugo analogy is apt in the following ways:

1) It's "affordable," but it's not there when you need it. 
2) The Yugo came out of a Communist country that had no compunction about engaging in rationing, and PCN is rationing, plain and simple, no two ways about it. 

Some are encouraging those of us who support Healthy Utah not overlook the good because we want the perfect. That's wrong on two levels:

1. "Utah Cares" can and at very best be called "mediocre". It fits no reasonable definition of "good".
2. A huge number of of us who support Healthy Utah do so because we are accepting the "good" of "Healthy Utah" because we couldn't get the "perfect" of Medicaid expansion.

Compromise is a good thing. It's the way a democratic government works. But "Utah Cares" isn't the compromise. If Rep. Dunnigan is willing to work with Senator Brian Shiozawa on a compromise between Healthy Utah and his bill, maybe we can work up a compromise more like a  Toyota Camry: not the best, but solid and reliable. Until then, "Utah Cares" isn't a compromise, it's a defeat for everyone.