When last year’s legislature passed a law giving the next governor power to expand Medicaid, they probably didn’t anticipate that the signing ceremony for that executive order would be one of the first big political stories of the new year. Several protesters showed up to express their displeasure at the governor and “Obamacare”, but Dayton defused the tension by allowing some of the protesters to express their opinions. The opponents recited the standard Tea Party propaganda that government has no role in providing health care and that churches and the community are quite capable of providing health care to those in need. Oddly enough, no church leaders were present to offer a detailed plan on how they would fund and administer a Medicaid substitute.
The Tea Party’s enthusiasm for some undefined form of charity care seems suspect. I don’t think they’re truly interested in such a thing, but telling the poor that they have to fend for themselves doesn’t earn one good PR. Better to utter some vacuous platitudes about faith and Christian can-doism. All that’s well and good until somebody has to pay the $75,000 hospital bill.
Elections matter, even if they’re decided by a few thousand votes. And this is simply good policy. Tens of thousands of vulnerable Minnesotans will get access to better health care and the rickety GAMC program can finally be consigned to the graveyard of poorly conceived ideas.
