Idahoans took the lead on Medicaid expansion; legislators need to get it done

Long ago I took the Navy’s OCS entrance exam. One of the questions described a situation that required a bridge, and what should you do. If you are a leader (officer material), you turn to your sergeant and order him to build a bridge. If you are a doer, then you write down details of how to make the bridge. If you are neither, reasons are stated why the bridge is impossible or it is left blank.

I attended the town hall meeting on Feb. 23 in Payette. It was well attended, 50-plus people, and all were very respectful of our representatives and each other. Thank you, Sen. Lee and Reps. Kirby and Boyle for hosting this event.

When the question of Medicaid expansion came up, I was disappointed in the answers given. Senator Lee said the people did not tell the Legislature how to fund the bill. They could pass it without funding, but they would not do that. Representative Kirby said it would pass, but needed incentives added to make sure people did not remain in the gap instead of advancing their lives. Representative Boyle was silent.

Which brings me back to my original statement. The citizens of Idaho, in this case, are the leaders, telling the Legislature what the situation required. Their responsibility, in this case, is to be the doer and get it done. Proposition 2 said all that it needed to say. All citizens of Idaho deserve health care.

Proposition 2 did not say please add work requirement rules. But the Legislature feels we accidentally left this out and feels compelled to add it. The officer did not say and the situation did not indicate it, but obviously the sergeant decided a gate and guardhouse are needed on the bridge.

For some reason we feel people in the gap are full of bad habits. They need watching. We believe people in the gap like being impoverished and will stay there once they have health care. A better life for themselves and their children is not incentive enough to move them up the ladder. People in the gap like a barely sustainable lifestyle and living at the edge of economic collapse.

Why do we think this way? Quickly looking up the salary of legislators, I can see that they are part-time employees and their salary scale puts many of them in the gap as well. Yet our legislators do not see people in the gap as people like them. Why not? Why do they see themselves as self-motivated upwardly mobile citizens, while at the same time all others in the gap need oversight? A parental presence to make them behave?

I want our legislators to be both leaders and doers, to never leave the question about the bridge unanswered, or to be silent. In this case, the people of Idaho are leading and the Legislature should not decide we got it wrong. That we really wanted only certain people to be able to cross the bridge.

This story was originally published March 1, 2019 at 5:30 PM.