The Second Surge
/My column of yesterday (over on the Tennessean and Commercial Appeal editorial pages) seems to have struck a fast nerve with readers on the timeliness of overdue Medicaid expansion in our state.
Responses came in many forms – via email, calls, social media – for which I’m always grateful. More important, it’s a time-sensitive issue for our state’s leaders, and time grows deadly short for making ready.
If you haven’t read the column as yet (“Put politics behind us, expand Medicaid”) see it here https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/2020/04/18/coronavirus-tennessee-put-politics-behind-us-and-expand-medicaid/2988895001/
These were among the many comments from concerned readers…
“Thank you for your strong and truthful editorial today in the Tennessean and Commercial Appeal! Governor Lee does seem to be the person to focus on at this time.”
“I am praying and sending positive thoughts that our governor and legislators will listen to you and finally take the right and moral action. Covid 19 should be reminding them of our common humanity and inspire their action for the common good. Your column gives me that hope.”
“Your column, Put politics behind us, expand Medicaid’ was spot on. As an RN and TN resident, I see such need in the many ways you outlined. Here’s hoping Governor Lee and our State officials take heed and proceed in a compassionate and thoughtful manner to improve TN health care and healthcare system.”
“Great column today on Tennessee's failure thus far to expand Medicaid to those who desperately need it. Shameful and immoral. Should be rerun daily until the damned Republicans get the message.”
Of course, it remains to be seen whether a sufficient number of Tennessee policymakers will rise to this extraordinary occasion and make expansion happen. But it’s possible the push to “re-open the economy,” as they say, is also forcing the question of Medicaid expansion in a new and forceful way.
People are worried.
It’s a hard spot that elected officials find themselves in right now: the rising impatience to restore businesses and jobs, on the one hand, and on the other the continuing fears of causing (inadvertently) a second surge of the coronavirus by ending the stay-at-home orders too soon. But being in position to make hard choices is why governors and legislators wanted their jobs in the first place.
Why not, in making this jobs/health choice, increase the odds on the side of smart preparedness. As our state leaders run the risk of possibly easing the quarantines too soon (and, reading the daily news, you can feel it coming) the least they can do for us now is to say “Yes” also to Medicaid expansion. Put the Obama-era politics aside, at last, and face this sudden new reality squarely and humanely for the people you serve.
Say “Yes” to the more than a billion dollars in federal funding that waits on Tennessee. That is what Medicaid expansion can bring to uninsured Tennesseans and to the hospital capacity needed to serve them.
It’s the one thing Gov. Bill Lee and our lawmakers can objectively do to increase the odds in our favor: Ensure that Tennesseans are insured and that hospitals and their staffs are ready in the disastrous event that, God help us, this virus should surge again.
