AZ Gov Brewer Hastens Cancer Deaths

GOV. JAN BREWER HASTENS CANCER DEATHS

Gov. Brewer, we’d like to introduce you to our friend, Lucy, an Arizona resident. Unfortunately, due to the fiscal policies enacted by you and your Republican cohorts, this hapless young woman died in January, 2012 at the ripe old age of 42. So you can rejoice! Another deadbeat your tax payers won’t have to support fell silently off the rolls. Well, maybe not quite THAT silently … we’re still in her corner.

After watching many of the Republican presidential debates and listening to the cynical and often heartless audiences cheering for executions and a hypothetical young man dying of cancer because he had no health insurance, it is obvious that your feelings and decisions regarding “the least of these, My brethren,” are in lock step with conservatives everywhere across this grand land. Ayn Rand would be proud – and so should you!

For some reason, the party of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy believe Lucy got herself into her situation through her own laziness or her inability to properly handle money … or maybe even because of a gambling or drug addiction. But you would all be wrong.

Lucy graduated from a 4 year college in Arizona; worked in radio; went back to school for her Masters and became a teacher with adequate health benefits. Then she got her cancer diagnosis and took leave to fight her disease. When she was fired for taking leave, she lost her benefits. In short order: Lucy could not get a job; was initially denied for SSDI; and subsequently signed up for state assistance under Arizona’s ACCESS plan.

While she awaited a response from the state, she tried selling jewelry online and even held a yard sale to raise money for her cancer treatments. The state eventually approved ACCESS which gave Lucy medical benefits but no income to live on. Of course, by then the cancer had spread to her hips and liver.

Always a fighter, Lucy started the chemo and after four treatments, she was notified that her SSDI appeal was approved and that she would be receiving disability. But under Arizona law, Lucy no longer qualified for ACCESS. So now she had income to pay rent and utilities but had no insurance to continue her cancer treatments. She went to court and the judge said sorry that’s the law.

Gov. Brewer, the most blessed of the terminally ill live out their last days saying goodbye or finalizing the last bits and pieces of a too short life. Instead Lucy, and all those like her in your state, will continue to engage in a losing battle against governmental red tape right up to the bitter end, all the while understanding in their hearts they never had a fighting chance.

Gov. Brewer, your policies and those of your state legislators helped put this woman where she is; in the ground. Congratulations! You have knocked thousands of the terminally ill, profoundly handicapped and transplant patients without absurdly expensive insurance into the aid boondocks, thereby adding tremendously to their burdens – and those of the folks who love them. You should be shouting to the rooftops what you and your fellow Republicans have accomplished! When it comes to saving money and cutting off all support for the most dispossessed in your society – and what a financial drag THOSE people have been – you have succeeded beyond even your wildest dreams. Of course, Arizona spends about $60,000 per inmate on Death Row – more than enough to pay for cancer treatments in many cases. But it’s obvious that, to folks like you, executing the living is way more important than saving the dying.

As for Lucy? Well, she thankfully left your tender Darwinian mercies behind. And whatever else you do, please don’t be hypocritical. Don’t give her death a second thought when you thought so little about her life. We knew Lucy well and have no doubt that the Carpenter from Nazareth will welcome her with open arms. We have to wonder, though, what your fate will be when your time comes.

Reprinted with the permission of:
Lucinda Sue Crosby
Laura Dobbins
Ridgecrest, CA