How to get a ‘liberal’ bill passed in the Idaho Legislature: Ask VanderSloot for help
How do you get a so-called “liberal” bill passed in the Idaho Legislature?
A bill that has a rating of -9 from the “let me do the thinking for you” Idaho Freedom Foundation? One that protects the little guy from big, bad business? One that challenges the notion of “just pull yourself up by the bootstraps”? One that goes against the very nature of the free market? In Idaho?
You get Idaho billionaire Frank VanderSloot, CEO of Melaleuca and richest man in Idaho, conservative GOP supporter, on your side.
Forgive my amusement, but the exhaustive — and exhausting — debate over the so-called “Idaho Patient Act” has been kind of fun to watch.
If any other legislator with a “D” after their name had brought this bill, it would have died a faster death than a seemingly slam-dunk proposal to do something as simple as prevent children from dying due to lack of medical care.
But because VanderSloot happens to be involved, this piece of legislation that seeks to protect ordinary Idahoans who’ve become victims of the system has received a level of debate seldom seen in the halls, committee rooms and floors of the Statehouse.
The House Business Committee approved the bill, 15-2, last week after an emotional five-hour(!) hearing that included lawmakers, themselves, sharing their personal stories, according to the Associated Press. The bill passed the House on Monday, on a 49-20 vote.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Jason Monks, R-Meridian, and has the support of VanderSloot, who got involved when a debt collection agency targeted one of his employees, tacking on legal fees that turned a $294 medical bill into a $5,500 bill.
If anyone else had brought the bill and didn’t have the support of VanderSloot, one can imagine how the debate otherwise would have gone.
Maybe it would have gone something like this: Didn’t pay your bill? Tough. Guess you should have worked harder and made more money to pay your debt. Now you’ve gotta pay the price. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
The bill seeks to cap medical collection debt fees at $350 for people who do not contest their bills and $750 for those who do.
Capping fees that a private business can collect? What is this, socialism? Is Bernie Sanders behind this? Hey, it costs money to chase down deadbeats like you who have the audacity to slip and split your head open and now want a free ride. This ain’t Cuba, you know. Or Canada. Or the United Kingdom. Or Sweden. Or France. Or any other developed nation on the face of the planet.
Several average folks, just regular residents, testified to the House Business Committee, sharing their stories of predatory medical debt collectors and urging committee members to advance the bill. Despite that testimony, committee members still recommended passage of the bill (going against their normal practice of ignoring overwhelming public testimony).
VanderSloot said he’s spent $1 million in legal fees defending people who he said appear to have been caught up in predatory medical billing by attorneys. Give VanderSloot major kudos for recognizing a problem, sympathizing with real Idahoans who are suffering and leading the charge on solutions to the problem.
So the Democrats now have a clear new political strategy. Just stay close to VanderSloot and introduce him to a victim of child abuse, a transgender teen, a 90-year-old widowed homeowner paying for a school bond out of her property taxes, teachers and counselors who call for social-emotional learning tools in school, a farmworker injured by aerial pesticide spraying, a child whose parents won’t take them to the doctor or give them medicine and child welfare advocates who think we should have licensing for drug and alcohol residential treatment centers for teens.
Then maybe, just maybe, important issues that deserve legislation would be given proper attention.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
