Two governments tackle public health

In May I knocked the door of a hospital administrator who travels the country studying best practices in public health. One government that’s doing it right, she said, is the Cherokee Nation in northeastern Oklahoma. 

Cobbling together funding from Indian Health Services, Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, and covering the last dollar itself, the Cherokee Nation is building a network of health centers so nobody in that fourteen-county area must drive more than thirty minutes for primary care. It’s developed innovative, cost-efficient ways to give every resident access to pharmacy and optometry services, diabetes education, behavioral health services, veteran services, and medical specialists.

• Last week a US district judge ruled that our Medicaid program, TennCare, unlawfully stripped thousands of kids of healthcare coverage due to bureaucratic foot-dragging and paperwork errors.

  Over the past decade, our state government has turned away $1.4 billion annually in federal funds it could have used to get more people health insurance through TennCare. As of 2022, some 800,000 Tennesseans were uninsured.

• Also last week, a US circuit court judge found that Tennessee—which already has high fetal- and maternal-mortality rates—will lose millions in federal grant funding for family planning. Why? Because the state won’t allow its clinics to counsel clients on all their reproductive-health options, including abortion.

  Currently nine women are suing the state for harm caused by Tennessee’s abortion ban. In an open letter to our state legislature, a thousand Tennessee medical professionals warned the ban is dangerous.

• In early August, it was reported that HIV and syphilis among 15-to-19-year-olds in the Memphis area rose 150 percent over the past five years. Oh, and a new law just went into effect forbidding Tennessee’s public health clinics from providing routine care to minors, including STD testing and birth control, without parental consent.

  Last year Gov. Bill Lee turned down $8 million in federal funds for HIV prevention and treatment because he didn’t want to focus on the populations at highest risk. Instead he wanted to focus on first responders, moms and babies, puppies and kittens, and sex-trafficking victims.

To court vaccine skeptics, our state government passed a new law making it harder for children in foster care to get the routine immunizations that have saved lives for generations.

To court the gun industry, our state government has spent years systematically deregulating firearms. Between 2011 and 2021, the number of Tennessee kids killed by gunshot wounds rose 162 percent.

Imagine the ripple effects of all those bad policies.

Imagine a Tennessee that won’t politicize public health.

If you want a state government that truly supports public health, please join my campaign. Click to donate, volunteer, or get a yard sign.