Afflicting the afflicted: The U.S., Florida, and the preferential option for the rich
It has been said you can judge the character of a nation by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. If that is true–which a slew of ethicists and religious leaders of every faith, most forcefully Pope Francis, believe it is–we have a huge problem of basic justice and ethics in this country.
For decades now, this society has functioned and this country has been governed following the exact opposite philosophy. It is almost as if the economic and political system in this United States had taken the doctrine of liberal and radical Catholics in Latin American in the 1960s–the preferential option for the poor–and turned it on its head.
The preferential option for the rich in the contemporary United States is a de facto reality never acknowledged by that term or any other. Politicians from both political parties practice it, but the Republicans have taken it much, much further and with a zealotry and self-righteousness that turns the stomach.
The long-term increase in inequality seems like an inexorable force, and there is no unmovable object to stand in its way. After years of outrageous rises in inequality and massive evidence of the dishonesty, irresponsibility and sheer arrogance of its main beneficiaries, one might have expected some rollback or at worst a pause. Instead, inequality was higher in 2014 than ever before. That was with Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate.
Turning to our own corner of the world, things in the state of Florida are even more dreadful than in most of the country. When it comes to protecting its most vulnerable, this state fails the test of a decent society miserably. It’s a shameful track record and an ongoing scandal.
A case in point: While much of the state was enjoying New Year’s Eve with strong drink and amid fireworks, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan let loose some firepower of his own aimed squarely at those who have for years been running the state, namely Republicans, following the unstated doctrine of the preferential option for the rich.
In an order described in the press as “scathing,” federal appeals judge Jordan wrote that for many years the state has systematically rationed medical care to poor and disabled children insured under Medicaid. Jordan ruled that denying adequate health care to needy children violates federal law.
Let’s pause for a moment to take this all in. Rationing of medical care? Isn’t that the very specter that Republicans have always used to scare people into opposing any kind of health care reform, most recently Obamacare? Rationing happens under socialism, they cried in unison. No wonder it happened under Obama, the African socialist!
The irony would be delicious if the hypocrisy didn’t reek so foul and the morals were not so abominable. These are the same folks that will die fighting for the rights of the fetus. These are the family values folks who abhor gay marriage. One can only conclude that for them rationing is socialism only if it importunes the well off who in any case have gold-plated insurance coverage or can afford any treatment at whatever price.
Rationing health care to poor and disabled children isn’t socialism, it’s just fiscal responsibility. This is the party who never saw a “tax incentive” for a big corporation or a subsidy for a billion dollar industry such as sugar they didn’t like. Yet this is the state that budgets such a miserly amount for children covered by Medicaid that it has driven hordes of physicians to decline accepting Medicaid patients.
This is the also party of the sanctity of life. What is health care for sick children about if not about life? This is also the God-fearing party. In his role, judge Jordan ruled that Florida is and has long been in violation of federal law. He should know. He has had the case for almost ten years. But, and this the judge could not say in a secular system of law, what about that higher law all these guys and gals profess they believe? Good luck getting through the eye of the needle.
As unconscionable as all this is, it is hardly an isolated case. It’s the normal state of affairs and a perfect example of the routine workings of the preferential option for the rich. Just two days earlier, a child welfare judge in Miami charged the state with denying needed psychiatric care to abused and neglected children in foster care. In a ruling characterized in the media as “blistering,” Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman said: “This Court’s orders are routinely ignored, and children with severe mental health needs are denied critical care.” To show he was not only mad but also serious, the judge ordered state bureaucrats to appear before him and explain why they have “no duty” to help mentally disturbed foster children under the state’s care.
Naturally, since many ordinary citizens would be appalled if they knew about all the travesties of law and insults to conscience practiced in this state, the best way to practice the preferential option for the rich is under a veil of secrecy. It has been going on for a long time. That’s why forensic anthropologists are only now finding the skeletal remains of children who died mysterious deaths at a long-closed, brutal state reform school in Marianna, Florida.
However, the current Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, so rich that he was able to virtually buy the governorship twice, has taken the art of opaque government to a whole new level. The instances of Scott’s managing to evade the state’s strong transparency law are too many to detail. Significantly, however, there are these facts cited in the Miami Herald: “Scott’s Department of Health stopped posting critical child death data on its website and excluded from its annual report on child deaths detailed analysis of the causes of death and the state’s role leading up to the fatalities.”
“Government in the sunshine” is supposed to be the law in Florida. This governor, a systematic practitioner of the preferential option for the rich, has so toyed with and twisted the law that we are not too far from government where the sun don’t shine.
