Expanding Medicaid is best for all

Many things in life can best be considered in terms of moral right, or wrong.

Medicaid expansion is on this list. It is morally correct to show mercy and compassion to fellow humans.

Yet a political tug of war persists over Medicaid expansion in Alaska, as shabby and oft-repeated talking points attempt to justify why denying access to affordable health care to some of the poorest Alaskans is the correct thing to do. Sadly, some of the loudest talking is coming from the halls of the Capitol, where legislators with some of the best health insurance our money can buy see nothing wrong with denying a modicum of that care to others.

As the talk drones on, regular Alaskans are harmed by lack of access to affordable health care. Businesses are harmed, too. The cost to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center alone last year for “charitable care” was $39 million.

That’s money that gets passed on to insurance ratepayers in the form of higher premiums. So we are already paying for our uninsured neighbors to receive care.

MSRMC CEO John Lee told the 80 or so people who attended a Medicaid expansion rally Friday in Wasilla that our current system drives a group of more than 40,000 Alaskans to emergency rooms to receive care, because emergency rooms cannot deny care based on ability to pay.

Expanding the Medicaid system means more people will receive primary and preventive care away from the ER, and at a fraction of the cost, Lee said.

No one who serves in the Alaska Legislature was elected by voters to serve the “majority caucus.” Individuals are elected to represent us. Yet political gamesmanship too often rules the day, and partisan scheming sweeps aside what’s morally right.

Morally and economically, expanding Medicaid in Alaska is the right thing to do. Helping our neighbors — living, breathing human beings who feel pain and share our certain mortality — is right.

Demonizing the poorest among us is wrong. Forcing people into poverty before the Medicaid “safety net” is available to help is wrong.

Among the attendees at the Friday rally were Kristen Nilsson and her 15-month-old son, Julian. She’s a special needs care coordinator, so she is accustomed to advocating for other people.

But the sign she carried Friday was for her husband and the thousands of other Alaskans without access to affordable health care. He experiences chronic pain and hadn’t been able to get help until recently. What changed?

“We finally became poor enough to qualify,” Nilsson said.

Who are we to judge who is worthy of medical care? Who are we to say Alaska can’t afford to help its own — especially when the federal government is paying the lion’s share.

Who are we to say this federal money is unclean and can’t be accepted when Alaska consistently benefits from federal spending way beyond what it contributes?

Gov. Bill Walker’s bill to expand and reform Medicaid includes the caveat that any expansion would continue only as long as the feds hold to their promised 90 percent funding match. This year, Alaska would collect about $146 million in federal dollars and expanding care would create an estimated 4,000 jobs.

Note that the cost of just one F-16 stationed at Eielson Air Force Base is $165 million. That’s $19 million more than the federal government is offering to spend for Alaska to expand Medicaid.

So the argument about growing federal debt is irrelevant. This is, first and foremost, about priorities. How do those priorities reflect on us? Do we not have a moral responsibility to do unto others as we would have done unto us?

It’s time to cease playing politics with Medicaid expansion and do what’s right.