The phrase “hope springs eternal” first appeared in Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man: Epistle I” (1733), “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
Hopes of many Mississippians were dashed when the 2024 Legislative Session failed to adopt the Affordable Care Act. Health care as a human right awaits another day.
2024 seemed to be the year when Mississippi would enter the present, joining 80 percent of American states offering medical care to those unable to afford it. Closure of hospitals in underserved areas of Mississippi would abate as well.
Jason White’s ascent to the Speakership is a wind of change. I am inclined to individuals with the initials “JW,” and my paternal grandfather was born in Speaker White’s hometown, West. Yet, apart from subjective attraction, White’s election heralds that change will come: The question is when.
The issue meanwhile is how many people will die unnecessarily; how many innocent bystanders will contract communicable diseases that would not have spread if another had not been ill; and how many hospitals will close?
Unfortunately we inhabit an era in which elected officials act as if they represent political parties and financial contributors rather than the public interest. Noblesse oblige is incomprehensible to individuals inclined to plutocracy.
People subscribing to blinkered concepts of public service proclaim virtues which prove hollow and hypocritical: They assert that government should be limited although they never hesitate to bestow largesse upon out-of-state companies — granting tax breaks as far as the eye can see.
Empathy for the have nots? They wear religion on their shirtsleeves but, notwithstanding religious tenets concerning the least among us — “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these [hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison], you did not do for me” — they would sooner subvert charity than provide alms to the poor.
English essayist Dr. Samuel Johnson famously observed, on April 7, 1775, that “Patriotism is the last refuge for a scoundrel.” Dr. Johnson did not survive to see religion become the last refuge of scoundrels.
It defies logic to suggest that those denying health care to fellow human beings pursue the Word of the Lord; recognizing that individuals reeling from unemployment, hunger, and homelessness share concerns for ailing children and parents similar to those needing nothing.
To the extent that the Affordable Care Act might have included Mississippians, coverage could have been restricted to those at or below the poverty line, with a work requirement: a cynical ploy to have it both ways — to state that health care was offered, confident that the Federal Government would never approve an application with a work requirement.
The question is not whether Mississippians will have access to Affordable Care Act coverage someday, simply when. Will we be the 50th state to accept inevitability as with the repeal of Prohibition? The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution passed on December 5, 1933. Mississippi took 33 years before it joined the nation in acknowledging alcohol consumption in its midst.
Doctors of my father and uncle’s generation followed the Hippocratic Oath: “First, Do No Harm.” They and their friends (including columnist Lottie Boggan’s husband Willard and editor Jimmye Sweat’s father-in-law Andy) could not conceive of politicizing health care delivery: They were committed to optimal outcomes for all patients regardless of race, creed, color, or station in life.
It is disappointing that elected officials, capable of better, refuse to comfort the least of us. Hopefully passage occurs next year — otherwise soon thereafter. History will not favorably judge individuals indifferent to alleviating the suffering of have nots.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider
