Well Arizona is at it again. The state is continually attempting to be the first in the nation to proactively fight the browning of America. First, it was a racist and xenophobic bill aimed at keeping people of color out of the state. Now they are trying a new method: letting people of color (and poor whites too) die. Okay, so that claim may be extreme, but it’s not far off. The state is cutting funding by taking 98 organ transplant-eligible patients off the waiting list.
Arizona decided to slash its 1.5 billion dollar deficit with a gigantic, err well measly 4.5 million annually, a whopping three-hundredths of one percent. Indeed a penny saved is a penny earned. Instead of responsive governing that protects the dignity and life of its people, Arizona Republicans who run on “pro-life” principles are willing to let people die for the sale-price of a bag of Hershey kisses-$1.97 per household.
What does this have to do with Arizona attacking communities of color?
First, the cuts apply to Medicaid patients. While we don’t have exact numbers of the racial make-up of the 98 patients getting kicked off the list, we do know that poorer people tend to need Medicaid, and as in the rest of the nation, communities of color in Arizona tend to have higher rates of poverty than Whites. Over 32% of Medicaid patients in Arizona are White, while 68% are non-White. People of color will be first and hardest hit by cuts in spending, although lets not forget that so will poor Whites.
Second, the patients getting knocked off the list are those suffering from health problems where transplants don’t have as strong of a track record, transplants for: lungs, livers, pancreases, and bone marrow. While the cuts are race neutral on its face, the impacts are not. For example: a disproportionate number of those in need of a liver transplant are Black men who suffer from chronic liver disease, 80% more than White men. Blacks suffer from pancreatic cancer at higher rates than Whites, while Blacks and Latinos both suffer from a higher rate of diabetes than Whites; key grounds for pancreatic transplants. For these reasons, Arizona’s cuts will disproportionately hurt people of color.
To be fair, Arizona shows some sympathy: you can still get that transplant if you raise that money yourself! This can cost anywhere from $200,000 and up. Who needs government support when all you need to do is take a second mortgage out on the house, get a loan, and cash in on retirement investments and your kid’s college fund? After all, that’s the pull yourself up by your bootstraps American Way!
Arizona is full of Tea Party activists and pundits who viciously attacked the national healthcare reform bill for having “death panels.” Yet these same activists are mum about policies that are essentially delivering the same fate to 98 Arizonans fighting for their lives. So while the state continues to lead the attack on people of color and people in poverty by cutting necessary government funding. We need to challenge these types of decisions by calling for government funding that will invest in the lives of our neighbors and will build a more inclusive and equitable community.
Anthony is currently a researcher at the Center for Social Inclusion. He graduated from the NYU Wagner School for Public Service with a Masters in Public Administration, specializing in policy analysis. Anthony’s interests and studies have focused on participatory policymaking strategies at the neighborhood level in urban communities of color. As a graduate student, Anthony worked as a research assistant at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, where he provided various research and GIS support for projects including theState of the City Report 2010.
