Wyo. senators put party over your health care

Trumpcare would harm thousands of Wyoming residents. Yet our senators, John Barrasso and Mike Enzi,  are leading the charge to see it become law.

By Rodger McDaniel

This is what passes for health-care policy in Wyoming. Convenience stores place jars on the counter, into which customers drop spare change to pay someone’s medical bills. Facebook posts GoFundMe requests, asking folks to chip in for someone’s medical bills. 

U.S. Sens. John Barrasso (left) asnd Mike Enzi, both R-Wyo.

Families with steep unpaid medical bills file bankruptcy. People don’t receive necessary care because they’re uninsured.

What does Wyoming’s congressional delegation propose?

Rep. Liz Cheney cast the deciding vote for TrumpCare, which means we can call it CheneyCare. The Congressional Budget Office said the House bill will mean thousands of her constituents will lose their health insurance, while premiums for others will skyrocket.

For their part, Sens. Mike Enzi and John Barrasso joined the partisan conspiracy aimed at getting a bill enacted before anyone knows what hit them. No Democrats were allowed to participate. No women. None of their constituents. No hearings. No public input. Just 13 old, white men, including Sens. Enzi and Barrasso, sitting around the table, shuffling the cards and dealing a bad hand to the rest of us.

The Senate had been expected to vote before the Fourth of July recess; it now may come afterward. Wyoming’s senators promised there would be plenty of time to review the bill. But neither the final bill nor the CBO score was available until a few days before the scheduled vote. GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said debate would be limited to 20 hours, an unreasonably short period of time for senators and their constituents to study, react and debate the bill. That leaves Enzi’s and Barrasso’s promise that the bill would be made public before a vote disingenuous.

TrumpCare will harm red states like Wyoming. The CBO estimated 22 million Americans will lose their insurance, most because of pre-existing conditions. Cheney claimed the bill took care of those folks. It doesn’t. That’s one reason Trump called the bill “mean.”

Why are Wyoming’s senators partial to secret, partisan deliberations? Wouldn’t it be better for Americans and the success of the legislation if Enzi, Barrasso and their GOP colleagues were more transparent and more inclusive?

Doesn’t it seem like Republicans could sit with Democrats and agree on these basics? One, health care is a right. Two, we are all personally responsible to purchase insurance. Three, insurance should cover essential medical needs.

If lawmakers believe health care is a privilege to be rationed based on ability to pay, millions will continue to get sick earlier and die sooner. Being well and without need for health care is a temporary condition, regardless of your income level. Eventually, we’ll all require it. Criminal defendants have a right to a lawyer. Shouldn’t we all have a right to medical care?

Second, let’s agree buying insurance is a matter of personal responsibility. If younger, healthier people are not required to buy insurance, when they inevitably get sick or have an accident, their bills get passed along to us in skyrocketing premiums and taxes.

The law should mandate we take responsibility for our own health care. We’re required to buy Medicare insurance from the time we started working. We’re mandated to buy automobile liability insurance so that others don’t have to pay for damages we may cause in an accident. Why not health insurance?

Third, insurance should cover essential medical care. Consider this: You can buy a car without wheels, windshield or engine. But a car with four wheels, a windshield and an engine will cost more. If insurance companies are selling policies that don’t cover much, they won’t cost as much. If they’re required to insure the health problems most people actually experience in the normal course of life, the premium will rise. When you get sick, which do you want?

If Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on the basics, having Enzi and Barrasso work behind closed doors to write a bill along with other old, white men, and then attempt to shove it down our throats makes sense.

In their drive to repeal a law that a majority of Americans no longer want repealed, politicians like Enzi and Barrasso have marginalized their constituents and clarified their own values, which are, unfortunately, partisan, rather than democratic, values.

Rodger McDaniel is the pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Cheyenne. He resides in Laramie.