Tennessee supermajority may be building legacy of apathy
What makes it so hard for our legislature’s Republican supermajority, in all its power, to do right by nearly a quarter-million less fortunate Tennesseans who have no health coverage?
Is it the cost of expanding Medicaid? No, the expansion is essentially paid for — a billion-plus dollars that have been left on the table uncollected.
Has there been too little time to understand how it would work?
No, there has been ample time — some say too much — with nearly a year of extra study.
Are there too many legislators afraid of their own shadows and of their own constituents back home — to whom they haven’t explained the fiscal, economic and human impacts of inaction? Now, we’re getting somewhere.
Seems there is no leadership with the skills and talent to move this agonizing issue — this legislative stalemate from hell — off dead center.
That is the missing piece. Where are the leaders?
Sadly, this is what has become of the humanitarian plan that Gov. Bill Haslam presented three legislative sessions ago, when he called it “Insure Tennessee.” Cover nearly a quarter-million more citizens who because of low incomes are presently uninsured, Haslam said, and pay for most of it by drawing down a billion-plus available dollars from the federal Medicaid program.
Yet in all this time, the General Assembly has not roused itself to do the right thing. Fear and indifference have ruled the day instead, and so eight rural hospitals have now closed, more sure to come, and the uncovered thousands remain so.
The costs of inaction are very high. In many communities, the local hospital is an important employer and purchaser of local goods and services. How many more may be lost?
Speaking of losing. For the legislators with the wrong priorities, for those who fret the most about their own next elections, we shall see.
Most hospitals and uninsured Tennesseans reside in Republican districts. You’d think their representatives would make the connection, and choose people over politics.
In 2016 all this was placed in the hands of a special legislative task force called “3 Star Healthy” and many took hope from that turn. But there is little to show for all that study — press clips but no plan, an outline without substance and most significantly no bill to codify the group’s findings.
In some states, the governor has taken action by executive order.
That might have happened here, but for (wait for it) Rep. Jeremy Durham. He passed a bill to force any such thinking back into the hands of the General Assembly. Of course Durham was later ousted by his colleagues, but his shadow remains for the 240,000. Durham is the trainwreck that keeps on wrecking.
There was a time when policy was driven by the need for progress, not just politics. Good policy makes for good politics, but you wouldn’t know that strolling the Legislative Plaza, where the health insurance heroes are outnumbered.
In 2014 Gov. Don Sundquist, conservative Republican, spoke at a roast for Gordon Bonnyman of the Tennessee Justice Center, who often battled with Sundquist’s administration on policy issues.
“All Republicans can have a heart,” Sundquist said, “and we need to have more who can have a heart. It’s probably true for some Democrats, as well. Gordon, I hope one of us makes it to the Pearly Gates — I hope both of us — but whichever of us makes it first, we need to tell St. Peter, ‘We tried to make it work.’ ”
In our 132-member legislature, there are some good and decent souls, smart and caring men and women of both political parties, who have seen the wisdom of what was called Insure Tennessee. But then there are the rest, and so far the rest are carrying the day.
This is serious. There are real victims. Will no one else in the supermajority — in all its power — stand up and lead for the 240,000?
Is callous indifference to people and suffering to be your legacy from this angry age?
Keel Hunt, a Tennessean columnist, is the author of “Coup: The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor.” Reach him at Keel@TSGNashville.com.