Nice Missouri State Senator Writes Nice Letter Telling Constituents To GTFO

We don't expect that writing to the village idiot that happens to be your state senator is ever going to be a particularly fulfilling experience, but you don't really expect that your duly-elected representative should suggest that your concerns would be alleviated if you would simply leave the state. That appears to be the preferred solution of Ed Emery, Missouri senator extraordinaire, who thinks that if you don't agree with Missouri's plan to let the uninsured basically rot in the streets, just leave already. 

Some nice people in Missouri put together a petition to send to jerkwads like Ed Emery who had opposed the Medicaid expansion. Ed Emery, ever the public servant, decided he should respond individually. This is exactly where everything gets stupid.

OK, to be honest, it started out only mildly stupid.

The letter explained that Emery was concerned expansion would limit individual choice in healthcare. It also mentioned Medicaid expansion in Oregon, where one study showed the newly-insured failed to achieve significantly improved health outcomes on four measures compared to the uninsured.

We're not at all sure how letting people have access to Medicaid limits their individual choice to choose some other type of healthcare, unless what Emery is really saying is one of those stupid "freedom of choice is freedom not to choose healthcare" type of things. Whatever. This is trivial compared to the stupid that is left to come.

Emery encouraged Cole to study expansion further and, before signing off, offered one more thought.

“We live in a nation and an era that facilitates physical moves between states. Individuals and families are free to consider moving to states with differing and even contrasting government policies,” he wrote.

That is indeed a thought. It is not a good thought, or a sensible thought, but it is a thought.

Do we dare point out that many people -- particularly those individuals who need low-cost government-subsidized health care -- are probably not in a position to just up and leave their state? Of course, that seems like sort of an obvious point to us, but clearly not so much to our dear Mr. Emery. However, it appears that he may suffer from an overall lack of comprehension.

“I don’t think there was anything in there suggesting anybody should move,” Emery said in a recent phone interview with KCUR.

He says he received a package of form letters asking for expansion and he responded to each one.

The letter, he says, simply pointed out that “we’re free to move from state to state if a state has policies that we like versus policies that we don’t.”

Hmmm. Telling people they're free to move if they don't like something in their state is actually pretty much totally telling them to move, dude. No real way around that. But very solid of you to tell each and every last one of the people that sent you a letter to do so. It's the little things that count.

[ KBIA ]