ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION, BOBBY?

The recent mass killings in Tucson, Aurora and Newtown have sparked public conversations about the deficiencies in state-run mental health systems across the United States. But few states are poised to spend their own money to reverse as much as a decade of budget cutbacks in those areas.

Instead, many of them are counting on an infusion of federal mental-health dollars. Because Medicaid includes mental-health benefits, those states that opt into the Medicaid expansion included in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act will be able to make mental health coverage available to thousands of their citizens who do not now have it.
For the first three years that additional coverage would cost the states nothing: Under terms of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government  will cover 100 percent of the costs of new Medicaid enrollees for the first three years and 90 percent after 2020.

Louisiana is not presently known for its sterling mental health care system.  Nevertheless, our governor, Bobby Jindal, has opted out of the Medicaid expansion which would cover mental health care on conservative principles, but I wonder if he may reconsider.   The majority of the citizens of Louisiana are against any sort of regulation of firearms or ammunition, giving as their reason that it's not guns that kill people, but deranged individuals who manage to get their hands on guns who kill people.  How about it, members of the NRA in Louisiana?  Why not start a campaign to urge the governor to sign on to the expanded Medicaid program that will enable more persons with mental illness to get treatment? 

The mentally ill deserve the same treatment as those with physical illness, because it's the right thing to do, but whatever your motive behind opting into the Medicaid expansion, just do it, Governor.  The Medicaid expansion program would serve a good many people with physical illnesses and offer preventive care.  What's not to like?  If conservative principles prevent you from giving the citizens of Louisiana services they need, then, in the name of simple compassion for the well-being of the people you serve, you should ditch your principles.

Also, Governor, in the event you hadn't noticed, the line of Republican governors who refuse to participate in the Medicaid expansion program is broken.  I expect more Republican governors will decide to adopt the program, so you would not stand alone if you changed your mind.  Perhaps you and your good friend Rick Perry (Tweedledum and Tweedledee?) from Texas might have a conversation about a change in policy. 

Arizona will participate in the expansion of Medicaid, Gov. Jan Brewer said Monday in her State of the State address, making her the third Republican governor to agree to one of the key components of President Barack Obama's health care reform.

Brewer said that if she did not accept the Medicaid funds for Arizona, other states could claim those federal dollars and create jobs that otherwise would be created in Arizona. Fellow Republican governors Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada also plan to expand Medicaid to anyone who earns up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is currently $14,856 for an individual.

But 10 other Republican governors have already decided not to participate. The Supreme Court's 2012 ruling that affirmed Obama's health care law allows states to refuse to take part in the Medicaid expansion.

BISHOP KATHARINE ON THE BORDER

From Episcopal News Service:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori recently spent three days on the U.S.-Mexico border between Arizona and Sonora engaged in educational and faith-based activities organized by the Diocese of Arizona and aimed at giving positive attention to the borderlands, upholding unity between the two countries, remembering the victims of the immigration crisis in the United States and Mexico, and raising consciousness and action toward immigration reform and economic development. Jefferts Schori offered the following words before a border crossing in Naco on April 14.  

Bishop Katharine speaks of humans as wanderers from the beginning.  The history of our faith life begins with the wanderings of Adam and Eve.  On throughout the Hebrew Testament the story of the Israelites is that of travelers from place to place.  Jesus was not born in the home town of Mary and Joseph, because they were traveling on account of a census ordered by Caesar Augustus, and then his parents were abruptly ordered to Egypt by an angel to escape the predations of King Herod.  Jesus himself was an itinerant, wandering from one town to another to preach the Good News.

God is not much interested in borders except as our flimsy excuses – to be crossed, bridged, and transcended. What is the greatest word in our story? The central word, according to Jesus, is “love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is what gets past the fence. Love is what gets us past the fence.

The overwhelming witness of the scripture is about loving God and neighbor, particularly the neighbors who have no family member or tribal structure to look after them. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the god of aliens and migrants. We hear over and over that “the Lord your God is the one who executes justice for the orphan and widow, and who loves the stranger, providing them food and clothing.”  When the Israelites take up their harvest, they are charged to leave some “for the alien, the orphan and widow, so that the Lord shall bless your undertakings…. Remember that you were a slave [and an alien] in Egypt.” (6) It gets even more explicit, “‘Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.’ Let all the people say, ‘Amen!’”

The prophets continue the litany, ‘care for the widow and orphan, and the stranger or alien in your midst, for you were strangers in Egypt.’ Those who seek God’s blessing will not find it unless they remember the alien and the sojourner, the migrant who needs justice.

Right and true words, indeed.  Borders are artificial constructs by which the powers attempt to order the lives of people, often for the named purposes of safety and security.

H/T to Andrew Gerns at The Lead.

CROSSING THROUGH ARIZONA

From undercovernun.

Thanks to Ann.