Far right war on experts can’t be allowed to block Wyoming health care fixes

Far-right lawmakers reacted to the idea of creating a Wyoming Healthcare Authority to improve the state’s health care system exactly the way I expected: hostile, misinformed and afraid.

I’m not a health care professional, but neither are the vast majority of  legislators elected to pass laws that affect Wyoming medical providers and the lives of all state residents. They could use a lot of assistance doing this critical portion of their part-time jobs, but the first step is to admit there is a problem to fix.

Many radical lawmakers deny it and go to absurd lengths to make their faulty case. They ignore what most of us know is true from personal experience: health care in Wyoming is unaffordable and inaccessible for far too many people.

The Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee voted last week to draft a bill to form the authority. The proposal to explore establishing a new, permanent health commission advanced by two votes, with opponents belonging to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus in the House and its Senate allies.

Sen. Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne) said she’s concerned that the Healthcare Authority would add an “extra layer” of government beyond the Legislature.

“This kind of bothers me in that you’re trying to alleviate a process that seems to be working really well,” she said.

In reality, Wyoming ranks 49th among the 50 states for affordable and accessible health care, and 43rd for the system’s overall performance according to the independent Commonwealth Fund. Wyoming has the sixth highest rate of uninsured adults in the nation at 16%, and one in 10 children have no health insurance at all.

Wyoming was singled out as the worst state in the country for high out-of-pocket medical costs and a suicide rate double the national average. Yet Hutchings and other legislators see nothing to worry about — other than the specter of “government interference.”

Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Cheyenne) denounced the proposed Healthcare Authority’s suggested membership, which would include a physician, licensed nurse, hospital administrator, EMS provider, business owner, a dean or administrator in higher education, and a Wind River Indian Reservation tribal member, all appointed by the governor — in other words, people who know what they’re talking about.

The panel would also include four non-voting members: the directors of the Wyoming Health Department and Department of Family Services, and the co-chairs of the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee.

That’s way too many members with health care expertise to suit Bouchard. At the meeting he condescendingly told Jen Davis, Gordon’s health and human services policy director, that people elect legislators “to protect them from the experts.”

“I’m quite frankly appalled thinking that we’re going to get experts in a room and come tell us how it’s going to be because they have better views,” Bouchard said. “How is having a certain group of experts, hand-picked experts, hand-picked, going to help us decide when everybody has an agenda?”

He’s right, of course. How could anyone possibly think health care experts have any business recommending how to improve Wyoming’s medical system when they can have someone like Bouchard — who runs a septic-tank pumping business — do it instead?

Bouchard has a history of railing against safe, proven health care measures in favor of dangerous, untested ones. He truly shined during the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming Wyoming’s leading anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist. He hated masks, too, and demanded Gordon resign for telling health care providers they must wear one.

The state senator touted ivermectin, a livestock dewormer used to treat or prevent parasites, not a deadly human virus. Such widespread advice from unqualified politicians prompted this famous tweet from the FDA: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

Bouchard followed former President Donald Trump’s lead in claiming hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria medicine, was a miracle drug that prevents COVID-19. It not only didn’t work; in February the peer-reviewed journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy linked its use to about 17,000 deaths during the first wave of COVID-19.

Freedom Caucus members of the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee said they believe a “hidden agenda” to pass Medicaid expansion is behind the Healthcare Authority proposal. The governor has never supported expansion, and the current Republican legislative majority has dug in its heels, too.

Davis said the governor is pushing for the new commission because he wants to improve health care by reducing medical costs, improving accessibility, and fostering higher quality health care through innovation.

But Medicaid expansion should be a major part of any Healthcare Authority’s work, and there’s no reason to hide that fact during an election year. Pro-expansion candidates can build momentum to take advantage of opponents’ blunders to win key seats.

The failure to expand Medicaid for more than a decade — Wyoming is one of only 10 states still holding out — has cost the state more than $1.1 billion in federal funds that could have circulated through our economy. For that tremendous financial mistake alone, legislators who still oppose it deserve to lose their jobs. 

But there are many other reasons for voters to back candidates who can finally turn the tide. Medicaid expansion could cut in half the $100 million Wyoming hospitals lose annually in uncompensated care costs to cover patients who can’t afford to pay. That’s the benefit Montana has reaped since it passed Medicaid expansion in 2015.

Expansion would provide health insurance to an estimated 19,000 hard-working Wyomingites who are ineligible for Affordable Care Act subsidies and whose jobs don’t offer medical benefits. In other states, Medicaid expansion has also reduced the cost of health insurance premiums for patients who can afford to pay.

Medicaid expansion would add an estimated 1,900 jobs to the health care sector and related businesses. It would also keep hospitals from closing vital departments like maternity wards. Wyoming has lost three in recent years.

This isn’t the first time proponents of better health care have tried to improve the system. Two commissions that made reform recommendations were created in 1993 and 2003, but their advice was mostly ignored because they merely submitted reports to the Legislature and then disbanded. 

The task force that Gordon appointed four years ago is still at it, but it’s met the same disappointing fate. The group has recommended making a new Healthcare Authority permanent so the effort won’t die whenever a supportive governor’s administration leaves office. 

Extremists have kept Wyoming from passing necessary health care reform measures for decades, and the increasingly powerful, anti-government Freedom Caucus appears intent on squashing an independent commission in the planning stage. In this ultra-red state it will take electing more moderate and “traditional” GOP conservatives, plus at least a few more Democrats, to join forces to make this proposal a reality.

I think the Healthcare Authority will need more power — beyond simply advising the Legislature — to move the needle toward better health care, but there will be time to strengthen it if we can keep the idea alive. 

The Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee will meet in Pinedale on June 20-21 to consider the draft bill. The Freedom Caucus is known for its loud opposition to anything that changes the healthcare system to help people. The rest of us must be louder — unless you want septic tank cleaners, not medical professionals, to keep calling your health care shots.

Editor’s note: Columnist Kerry Drake works for advocacy group Better Wyoming, which has pushed to expand Medicaid in the state.