Montini: Court saved health care for the poor and Republicans are angry

You’d think a court decision that prevents 400,000 needy Arizonans from losing health care would make everyone happy.

Particularly just before Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas season.

But, no.

The decision last week by the Arizona Supreme Court makes a bunch of current and former Republican lawmakers and their Scrooge-like lawyers at The Goldwater Institute VERY unhappy.

They would have loved for the court to say that the state’s Medicaid expansion program is unconstitutional and should be dissolved.

A disaster for our more needy brothers and sisters.

Expansion saves money and lives

This was a program originally worked out between then-Gov. Jan Brewer and a bipartisan group of lawmakers that provided health care to thousands of Arizonans for the first time, which not only kept people healthy but eased the tremendous burden on Arizona hospitals, where emergency rooms were being flooded with sick uninsured individuals.

More importantly, it saves lives.

Most people would consider that a good thing.

ROBB:Medicaid ruling puts politics above the law

At least, most people who aren’t Republican legislators in Arizona or their lawyers.

Christina Sandefur, a Goldwater Institute attorney who argued for the lawmakers, called the court's decision “a classic case of taxation without authorization.”

What it allows, actually, is fewer deaths among our less fortunate neighbors.

Lawyers and lawmakers don’t have many health care worries, however.

First, they weren’t spending their money on the lawsuit. They were spending yours.

They did the easy (and wrong) thing

And as The Arizona Republic’s Ken Alltucker reported a while back, two-thirds of the Republican lawmakers who sued to overturn Medicaid coverage are on state-sponsored health-insurance plans. Meaning they use taxpayer money to get better medical benefits than most average Arizona taxpayers.

Attorney Tim Hogan of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, which worked with Medicaid recipients, said as the case was making its way through the courts, "It is easy for legislators to vote to deny benefits and health care to others when it's not going to affect them. They are on the state plan at taxpayer expense, so they are all set."

In the end, the Arizona Supreme Court was unanimous in supporting the expansion.

Former Gov. Brewer said, "I feel good that Arizonans will continue to receive health care because of the decision. ... It met the test of doing the right thing, which almost always means doing the hard thing."

On the other hand, the current and former Republican lawmakers in favor of doing the easy thing, the wrong thing, and take away health care to 400,000 Arizonans are:

Andy Biggs, Andrew Tobin, Nancy Barto, Judy Burges, Chester Crandell, Gail Griffin, Al Melvin, Kelli Ward, Steve Yarbrough, Kimberly Yee, John Allen, Brenda Barton, Sonny Borrelli, Paul Boyer, Karen Fann, Eddie Farnsworth, Thomas Forese, David Gowan, Rick Gray, John Kavanagh, Adam Kwasman, Debbie Lesko, David Livingston, Phil Lovas, J.D. Mesnard, Darin Mitchell, Steve Montenegro, Justin Olson, Warren Petersen, Justin Pierce, Carl Seel, Steve Smith, David Stevens, Bob Thorpe, Kelly Townsend and Michelle Ugenti. 

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