The Conversion of the Apostle Mead

After four years as governor, he had a vision. Matt Mead saw that, unlike him, not everyone was born with a silver spur in his or her mouth. Mead’s conversion occurred almost without notice. Quietly the governor became a supporter of Medicaid expansion. Suddenly he was concerned about the thousands of Wyomingites who lack healthcare.

Having been against Medicaid expansion before he was for it, Mead never explained

his conversion. But, this sort of conversion is without meaning unless those who

followed him when he was leading them in the wrong direction are also converted.

One of the all-time great conversion stories is found in the 9^th chapter of “The Book of the Acts of the Politicians” of the Sagebrush Gospel. It’s the story of the conversion of Saul a/k/a Matthew Mead. It goes like this.

While still breathing specious arguments against Medicaid expansion, Matthew came unto the legislature, saying the Empire couldn’t be trusted to pay its share, that Medicaid expansion was sinful. As he was going along and approaching the 2015 legislature, suddenly a light flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Matthew, Matthew, why don’t you care for Wyoming’s working families who have no health insurance?”

Now there was a disciple in Cheyenne called Sancus, named after the Greek god of honesty. The disciple took Matthew aside. Sancus explained the state of Wyoming was losing tens-of-millions of dollars, leaving thousands of people without health care, and that many of the state’s hospitals were in danger of closing their doors. They cared for the poor despite the financial losses they incurred.  The disciple explaineth that expansion of Medicaid would solve many of the state’s health-related problems while saving the taxpayers millions and building the state’s medical infrastructure, adding millions of dollars to the economy of local communities.

Sancus proclaimed, “Let those with ears hear!”

Matthew had heard all these things before, but in the glaring light the words suddenly made sense. He saw a vision. He became aware he was elected governor of all the people, not just some.

For days he was with the disciples in Cheyenne and began to proclaim the truth in the halls of the legislature. “Verily I say unto you, I know I have persecuted those who believe in Medicaid expansion. But now I say unto you I share their concern about taxpayers sending money to the Empire that goes to other states for healthcare. Render unto Wyoming people that which belongs to Wyoming people!”

All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the Governor who made havoc among those who could not afford healthcare? Has he not gone to the courts and the legislature to make certain these folks never receive care?”

Mead confounded legislators. They had campaigned for seats in the Temple (which Jesus called a “den of robbers”) by repeating Mead’s very words promising constituents never to expand Medicaid. Then the Apostle Matthew sayeth, “We are now in this place with roughly 17,600 people falling in the (Medicaid) gap. Most are working but still can’t afford insurance. As of now, 4.5 million denarii ($90 million US dollars) that would have come to Wyoming have gone to other states.”

All who heard him marveled and said, “Duh!” And the multitudes said, “Matthew, if you really believe, go forth and leadeth.”

Governor Mead deserves thanks for joining those who understand the importance of expanding Medicaid. If the legislature is going to have the same conversion experience, he will need to explain why he was wrong before. Not a single fact has changed. Only Matt Mead’s views have changed. Why?

When the Apostle Paul saw the light, he wasn’t quiet about converting. He persuaded others to convert by explaining how he’d been wrong before. Neither should the Governor be quiet.

Memo to Governor Mead: “You led them in the wrong direction for three years. How do you plan to get them to turn around and follow you now?

Cheney withdrawal bad news for Mead

Although Liz Cheney left the senate race long before any meaningful poll could have predicted the outcome of her challenge to Mike Enzi, reactions among Wyoming Republicans to her decision to throw in the towel ranged from glee to relief. The one exception to the celebration may have been the reaction at the Governor’s residence.

Matt Mead did not win the 2010 GOP primary because he was the first choice of Republicans. He wasn’t. He won because several thousand Wyoming Democrats changed their party registration and crossed over to vote for him in order to prevent the nomination of former state representative Ron Micheli who was erroneously perceived as farther right than Mead. Estimates of the number of such crossover-voters range as high as 10,000.

Even so, 71% of those voting in the 2010 Republican primary favored a candidate other than the eventual governor. Though he spent nearly a million of his own dollars, Mead won by a single percentage point over the second place Rita Meyer, the former State Auditor. Mead wouldn’t have won in the absence of so many Democratic votes.

With the prospect of an Enzi-Cheney race for the US Senate, there was a strong likelihood that thousands of Democrats would once again crossover to prevent the spawn of Dick Cheney from being nominated. The opportunity to get some measure of revenge for Dick Cheney’s destructive vice-presidency would have proved too inviting. Undoubtedly Democrats would have relished an opportunity to visit the sins of the father on the daughter and her ill-advised candidacy.

Had Democrats crossed over to vote for Mike Enzi, they could have been expected, as long as they were on that side of the ballot, to also vote against tea party favorite Cindy Hill, thus saving Mead’s hide once again.

Poof! Just like that the motivation is gone. With Cheney off the 2014 ballot and Mead having proved to be no less far-right than the candidate feared by moderates in 2010, Democrats will be significantly more likely to focus on the way in which this governor has cow-towed to the right on Medicaid expansion, his alignment with ALEC, the extent to which he has protected the frackers from the fracked, and his otherwise nonexistent agenda. Democrats will be unlikely to save the GOP from itself this go-around.

The irony was not lost on anyone that Cheney pulled out of the race on the very same day the legislature opened hearings it hopes will persuade the public that all the money they have spent trying to discredit Mead’s opponent was actually worth it. As thin as the evidence appears, it’s easy to argue that this investigation was necessitated not so much by Hill’s wrongdoing as by the fact that she announced so early her intent to run against Mead.

The legislature’s leadership has been uncharacteristically ham-handed with the entire Cindy Hill controversy. They sought a partisan victory over the public interest, happily working for her election over Mike Massie, a far more qualified Democratic candidate. When she proved she wasn’t one of the GOBs (good old boys), the GOP quickly turned on her, accepting no responsibility for her election as they proved incapable of reasoning with her.

To compound the problem, they greatly underestimated Cindy Hill. Say what you will, she is one tough cookie. She has made mistakes. Talk of impeachment was designed to intimidate her. Have no doubt, the threat would have caused most politicians to question themselves and back off. She won’t be intimidated.

Cindy Hill is tougher than those with whom the good old boys are generally accustomed to dealing. She is tougher than those who are now going after her. She will survive to make their life very difficult during this primary campaign.

So in the end, the Wyoming Republican party will go into this campaign badly divided, with the establishment of the party giving good reason to the insurrectionists to work even harder, and with no hope that Democrats will again ride to the rescue.

Serving vs. advocating for the uninsured

Brazilian Bishop Camara famously said, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I’m called a communist,” a colorful way of saying that while helping the poor earns praise, questioning the policies that keep them poor is not so welcomed.

Recently the trustees at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center voted 5-4 to require full co-payments from insured patients before receiving medical services. Uninsured patients are now required to pay a minimum of $180 when initially seen and $120 for follow-up visits.

After this column objected, CRMC responded with op-eds and letters-to-the-editor making good points about what the hospital is doing to help low-income and uninsured people obtain care. But, their PR machine should be used to persuade Governor Mead, not me. It’s Mead whose decision to forego Medicaid expansion makes the CRMC programs necessary even as his partisan decision forces CRMC to provide millions of dollars in uncompensated care.

CRMC invited me to learn more about their good works. I did and am impressed. I toured the hospital’s new Emergency Room and was assured no one would be turned away for inability to pay. If that happens to you, let me know.

I also spent time at the Cheyenne Health and Wellness Center, largely funded by CRMC, as is its pharmacy. Both are vital safety nets for low-income folks. This year the pharmacy will provide over 6.1 million dollars in prescription drugs to those who would not otherwise receive them. CRMC provides 80% of their operating costs.

The clinic will treat more than 6300 people this year, averaging $231 while an ER visit costs $754. It doesn’t take many ER diversions to save millions of your tax dollars. Equally impressive is the level of preventive care CHWC provides.

CRMC is to be commended for these programs and others, which are part of the maze of state and local programs, created to help the uninsured get care. However commendable those efforts, CRMC’s advocates miss the point. Tim Thorson, whose work with Circles demonstrates his concern for those in poverty, serves on the CRMC community benefits committee. His letter-to-the-editor argued it’s “a mistake to confuse the larger issues around Medicaid with what is a reasonable and necessary change in collecting payments at the hospital.”

Actually the two issues are inextricably intertwined. If the governor and the legislature expand Medicaid coverage, CRMC’s new collection policy wouldn’t be necessary. Those targeted by the policy would have insurance.

Consider the cost of not expanding Medicaid. Last year CRMC spent more than two million dollars funding healthcare programs for the uninsured. They wrote off $23 million in uncompensated care. Hospitals around Wyoming wrote off more than 200 million dollars. Yes, Medicaid is expensive but what we’re doing now isn’t free.

Without adequate insurance, low-income families are now required to bring large cash payments with them before they can walk through CRMC’s doors. Is that a problem? Four of the nine CRMC trustees thought so when they voted against the new policy. My column simply shared some the same concerns they voiced.

Trustee chairman Joe Evans voted “no” saying, "My concern is that we don't want people not to be seen because of the policy," Evans’ concern is valid. The bottom line is these fees will mean fewer people have access to care in Laramie County.  The Center for Advancing Health researchers found that one in five U.S. adults do not get needed medical care because they were worried about the cost or their health insurance would not pay for treatment.

CRMC is doing yeoman work meeting important community health needs. But where is their voice when the governor says he will not expand Medicaid? Where are the op-eds and letters-to-the-editor? CRMC’s PR apparatus would be more productive challenging Governor Mead’s partisan decision to deny Medicaid coverage to the uninsured rather than questioning efforts to challenge their payment policy.

Maybe they could invite the governor to witness the problems his choices have caused.

Unrequited love and the GOP

Charlie Brown, one of our generation’s great philosophers said, “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” Smooth or crunchy, there’s no more painful kind of love than unrequited self-love.

The Wyoming Republican Party has tried to be smooth and crunchy. Self-lovers attempt to be “all things to all people.” The novelist Anthony Powell said, “Self-love seems so often unrequited.”

When you love someone who doesn’t love you, you move on. But what can you do when you love yourself and that love is unrequited? Think “The War of the Roses” with one person playing both Michael Douglas’ and Kathleen Turner’s roles.

Wyoming Republicans vigorously courted the religious right, the anti-choice crowd, the intolerant, and a long list of the single-issue groups. They made partiers of a variety of “again’ers” opposing rights and dreams of women, gays, minorities, gun-safety reformers, immigrants and environmentalists. As they won more elections they fell in love with themselves. But winning elections through division inevitably leads to superficial self-love, which is inevitably unrequited.

The latest example is the attack on Governor Mead resulting from his appointment of Kate Fox to the Supreme Court. The self-proclaimed “family values” crowd is furious. They didn’t want Mead to be governor from the start. “Early in the 2010 election cycle WyWatch warned voters that then Gubernatorial Candidate Matt Mead was not pro-life,” Becky Vandeberghe, chair of the WyWatch PAC told a news organization. “Today he solidified that perception in thousands of pro-life voters’ minds when he publicly announced he has appointed previous NARAL Attorney and advocate, Kate Fox to the Wyoming Supreme Court.”

Of course the charge is as ludicrous as it is gratuitous, but then, self-lovers characteristically engage in those kinds of self-recriminations. The GOP is taking a favorite wedge issue used to defeat rational Democrats and turning it on one another.

Then there’s the spectacle of internecine warfare among the Cheney’s. There is no greater example of self-love than Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney. Now Dick wants his mini-me, heterosexual daughter Liz to be a senator so badly he’s sided with her against his other daughter.

But when you’re working for the love of the right, it’s a problem when your sister turns out to be a lesbian. Mary and Liz’s parents had to choose between self-love and loving one another. They piled on Mary, assuring the voters that Liz always believed what she says she believes today, i.e. that her sister doesn’t deserve civil rights.

Wyoming’s 16,000 uninsured families are the latest collateral damage in this lover’s spat. Medicaid expansion could have provided them with insurance. But they’ve been spurned for Mead’s wooing of the tea party. If ever there’s been unrequited love, it is between Mead and the GOP rightwing. But he hasn’t given up trying. He knows if he can’t win them over, Cindy Hill will. So those 16,000 folks who probably aren’t even registered to vote…let ‘em eat cake.

Max Maxfield is experiencing unrequited love. He counted the number of signatures on a petition filed by the Constitution Party to repeal the “Hill bill” finding it short of the number required to get on the ballot. Now the Constitution party chair-person is running against Max. Where’s the love among the righties?

Another example? How about the vicious attacks on House Speaker Tom Lubnau by gun control opponents? Anthony Bouchard of Wyoming Gun Owners said of Lubnau, “When you have been keeping an eye on corrupt politicians long enough, you can almost predict how they will react when they are confronted with the truth. It’s just like turning the lights on in a room full of cockroaches!”

Many see an element of schadenfreude in all of this. But the result is that once moderate Republicans like Enzi, Mead, and Lubnau are being driven off the cliff to the right in order to avoid the inevitable outcome of an unrequited love, i.e. a primary election defeat.  Perhaps they’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places.

Should Democrats save GOP from itself?

My record for political prognostication has been consistent… consistently wrong. I predicted the election of Presidents Birch Bayh, Gary Hart, and Ted Kennedy. I had it right once but five members of the Supreme Court snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Failure never stopped me from trying again. So here goes.

I predict the 2014 Republican primary for the Senate will be decided not by Republicans, but by whether or not enough Democrats decide to cross over to vote against Liz Cheney.

Current polls may give Enzi a big lead, but by the time Liz has actually lived in Wyoming long enough to legally purchase a resident fishing license, those numbers will change. What matters now isn’t what Republicans say when asked whether they’d vote for Enzi or Cheney if the election were today.

The reason the race will narrow in coming months can be found in the probing questions Cheney’s pollsters most likely asked. You can bet Dick Cheney’s daughter didn’t decide to run without a strong reason to believe she could win. All you need to know about what pollsters learned that gives Cheney encouragement is that Mike Enzi has joined Tea Partiers like Ted Cruz in threatening to shut down the government if Democrats don’t agree to defund Obamacare, an ideas Enzi’s Republican colleague, Senator Richard Burr (North Carolina) calls “dumb” and the New York Times called “reckless.”

Enzi knows what Liz learned polling Wyoming Republicans. A majority is more interested in doctrinaire, anti-Obama, uncompromising rhetoric than in having an effective senator. They prefer someone who lobs grenades and takes no prisoners to one who might be willing to negotiate a cease-fire. Evidence the comparatively lukewarm reception Enzi received last weekend at Tea Party events.

A divided Republican Party won’t determine the outcome, neither Tea Partiers nor RINOS. Democrats will have to decide whether to save the GOP from itself.

Remember the 2010 GOP primary that nominated Matt Mead? Most Republicans didn’t want him to be their nominee. They wanted someone they perceived as far more conservative. That candidate frightened Democrats who crossed over in droves to vote in the GOP primary for Mead, assuring him the nomination, which was tantamount to winning the general election.

In Natrona County, Democrats did the same for state senator Charlie Scott. They feared the religious-right candidacy of Bob Brechtel and so they crossed over and saved Scott’s bacon.

In both cases, Democrats have been more than a little disappointed. In response to Brechtel’s challenge Charlie became Bob, leading efforts to kill a bill protecting homosexuals from job-related discrimination and stopping the expansion of Medicaid. They got Bob Brechtel’s voting record with Scott’s influence. It was a bad bargain.

The disappointment with Mead is even greater. His “thank-you” to those who secured his nomination has been to cross-over to the Republican right on everything from fracking to Medicaid expansion. He decided that instead of showing gratitude to those who nominated him, he would try to shore up his right-wing.

Now we are coming into 2014 and Democrats are already considering whether to bail out Mike Enzi. Remember George Bush’s admonition, “fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me – well, you can't get fooled again”? Democrats have been victimized by unrequited love before and hesitate to give themselves away again. As much as Democrats relish a chance to get a bit of revenge against Dick Cheney they may choose to exercise some restraint. If Enzi decides that to win the nomination he has to “out-nutty” Liz Cheney, Democrats have nothing to gain or lose by letting Republicans decide their nominee for themselves.

Enzi’s willingness to demand the repeal of Obamacare as the price for his vote to approve a budget is a bad omen. I may be wrong again. Mike Enzi may not need Democrats in 2014 like Mead needed them in 2010. He’s signaling he wants to do it on his own. Unless he throws Democrats a bone, they should let him.