The problem with electing ideologues

To the editor:

Alaska’s deadliest hemorrhage is about Alaskans who are actually ill and the biggest obstacle is the gang of R’s in Juneau. This is the same group that made the fiscal mess they are now claiming no ownership of or even an acknowledgment of their complicity.

These incumbents fall all over themselves when an oil company executive expresses displeasure about tax rates, but they can barely manage a stiff upper lip without expressing arrogance and disgust that Alaskan’s in need of assistance might wind up covered by Medicaid.

For these elected but indifferent ideologues 40,000 Alaskans without dependable healthcare takes on the significance of an abstract statistic, it’s just not a problem for the R’s, but let Big Oil hiccup that record profits aren’t enough and they will genuflect and legislate allegiance.

Consider the moral dilemma here: profits trump Alaska citizens who face calamitous consequences without health insurance. The 10 percent deficit after the 100 percent Medicaid subsidy expires is a problem, but it’s not insurmountable, as are the problems associated with dire medical treatment. You don’t get an effective chemotherapy treatment plan by showing up in the emergency room in stage four of the disease.

Buried deep in the obvious advantage of expanding Medicaid and the spike in employment it will spur is the veiled realization that it will contribute to an economy that puts the Democratic Party in a positive light and that’s unacceptable to people who care more about gaining and maintaining power than helping all of the people they were elected to represent. That’s the problem with electing ideologues, they don’t change their minds when conditions warrant it. They don’t have ideas, ideas have them.

Rep. Shelley Hughes of Palmer suggests it’s time for the churches to step up. Indeed, maybe they will open clinics and start treating cancer patients. This partisanship on what should be a nonpartisan issue in this case is despicable.

The most important thing to keep in mind in 2016 is who these brazen uncaring politicians are. Such indifferent behavior with regard to Alaskans in need of medical care is beneath contempt. Remember the “don’t care gang” and “SB21 give-away-gang” are the same people. Send them packing in 2016.

Charles Hayes

Wasilla