Legislature considering health care, prison issues this session

Friday, Feb. 06, 2015

The 2015 legislative session looks very similar in some respects to the 2014 session. About this time last year, the Diocese of Salt Lake City was advocating for Governor Gary Herbert and legislators to expand Medicaid in the state to individuals living at less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level (i.e. making roughly $16,000 or less per year). This year, we continue to advocate for increased health coverage across the state with one key difference: Gov. Herbert has proposed a plan that would cover tens of thousands of low-income Utahns, while legislators, through the Health Reform Task Force, continue to promote a far more expensive and less expansive coverage plan.

Our Catholic teaching on the issue has not changed. We are still focused on the dignity of the human being. We still believe that every human being should have access to what is necessary to lead a truly human life: food, clothing, health care, work, education, culture, the right to establish a family. And our Church still teaches that when people lack such access, the proper function of civil authority is to make these items accessible.

Like last year, legislative arguments against expanding health care coverage through Medicaid haven’t changed and can be summed up as “It’s Obama’s law and we don’t like it” or “The federal government won’t be able to keep its promises to pay, so we don’t want it.” 

Neither argument has merit from a moral, fiscal or policy standpoint. I won’t waste time countering the childish “we don’t like it” argument. As for the fiscal arguments, all reports from within and outside of government point to steady improvements in our national economy, and the U.S. has not reneged on Medicaid payments since its inception 70 years ago. 

It is also difficult to accept such fiscal arguments from state task force that has proposed a more expensive health insurance plan that covers far fewer low-income individuals, and would discourage people from working. The task force proposal is bad public policy and incompatible with Catholic teaching regarding the dignity and sanctity of life, dignity of work, and preferential option for the poor.

Interestingly, the one aspect of Healthy Utah that legislators do seem to find value in is the impact on our criminal justice system. Much like last year, the question of what to do with our aging prison in Draper remains on the legislative front burner. Fortunately, the focus this session is less on where to put a prison and more on how to lower the overall numbers of people in prison. Perhaps the most effective means of doing so is providing mental health and substance abuse treatment to people before they commit crimes that are serious enough to warrant prison. Healthy Utah would provide much needed coverage for about 62 percent of low-income individuals who need substance abuse treatment and currently don’t have coverage, or are paid for out of funds that could be used for housing, child care or employment assistance. Thus far, with a few exceptions, legislators have shown a strong level of understanding regarding the impacts untreated mental health and substance abuse disorders have on individual behavior, including criminal conduct and poverty.  

Sadly, a few legislators appear to believe that the best way to reduce the overall prison population is to put more people on death row and shoot them. While this may be the knee-jerk reaction of many of us when we hear tales of horrendous crimes, government must not function on gut reactions. Rather, the state needs to consider the public safety impacts of killing its citizens and understand that execution has been shown to have no deterrent effect on crime. We Catholics must consider the moral implications of condoning state sanctioned executions and what it means to deprive an individual of the chance to reconcile with God.