COLUMN: The health care crisis of virtue signaling | Opinion

The virtue signaling via your tax dollars escalates.

The state of Colorado plans to declare racism a “public health care crisis.”

According to Channel 7 News, the head of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Jill Hunsaker Ryan, will make the declaration.

They report, “In doing so, Hunsaker Ryan said she has two goals: to increase diversity in the department’s workforce, which is almost 78% white, and make it easier for local community organizations that provide services to people of color to partner with the agency. She also plans to hire an equity and inclusion officer for the department, potentially by the end of August.”

So, increase diversity in a department which is almost 78% white? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Colorado is 86.9% “white alone,” defined as people who self-report as white and no other race.

Make it easier for community organizations that provide services to people of color to partner with them? Silly me for thinking the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment should make it easier for all organizations to partner with them no matter the skin tone of those they provide service.

Hire an equity and inclusion officer? Good to know that while Colorado’s private sector unemployment rate is exploding during a pandemic, and the state government is crying budget poverty over it, our state’s health department will provide its indecent job security to a new inclusion officer rather than a nurse or a doctor or even someone to process COVID screenings.

The state is signaling what’s really important — politicizing and bending core governmental functions to fit fashionable social causes. That might suit you just fine, so long as you agree with the outrage-de-jour.

Would those thinking it appropriate to declare racism a health care crisis today feel the same tomorrow should Trumpies get into office in Colorado and declare illegal immigration a health care crisis? The case could be made there, too.

Promoting political agendas by labeling them a “health crisis” is nothing new. In 2016, the American Medical Association adopted policy calling gun violence (not violence oddly, but gun violence) in the United States “a public health crisis” even though gun violence was near an all-time low.

If racism should be declared a health care crisis, what about domestic violence? The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports an average of 20 people experience intimate partner physical violence every minute in the U.S., more than 10 million abuse victims annually.

According to the New York Times, the number of domestic abuse murders rose to 2,237 in 2017, a 19% increase from the 1,875 killed in 2014. Unlike racial equality, this issue is getting worse.

Ms. Hunsaker Ryan, will you declare domestic abuse a health care crisis? If not, why not? Could it be that those effected by domestic abuse aren’t vandalizing and spraying your capitol offices like other victim groups are today?

Is suicide a health care crisis? The American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide, using CDC numbers, report suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2018, with 1.4 million suicide attempts and 48,344 lives lost.

To contrast that body count, the FBI’s Unified Crime Report shows “only” 16,214 lives were lost to murder and manslaughter in 2018. Of those 16,214 souls the FBI reports 13, just 0.08%, were deemed as hate crimes, racism.

Ms. Hunsaker Ryan, will you declare suicide a health care crisis? If not, why not?

The CDC reports that in 2017, 40,231 Americans lost their lives in automobile accidents. That’s nearly 10 times more dead on our roads each year than Americans killed in 15 years of the Iraq war. They further report that for every automobile death there are 9 people hospitalized and 88 people treated in emergency rooms, straining on our packed healthcare system.

Ms. Hunsaker Ryan, how is this not health care crisis? Don’t those staggering numbers absolutely demand you declare it so?

The CDC reports 64,795 deaths in 2017 by unintentional poisoning. Not a health crisis? They also report 36,338 by unintentional falls. But not a crisis?

Simple plea. Will the Polis administration create a written policy laying out the criteria for what they will declare as a health crisis?

But how do you write a coherent policy based on changing political agendas not science?

Jon Caldara is the president of the Independence Institute, Colorado’s free-market think tank in Denver.

Jon Caldara is the President of the Independence Institute, Colorado’s free-market think tank in Denver.

Source Article

Next Post

Vegetarian capsule becomes new trend of international dietary supplement market in 2020

Mon Dec 4 , 2023
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xinhua-silk-road-vegetarian-capsule-becomes-new-trend-of-international-dietary-supplement-market-in-2020-301111683.html SOURCE Xinhua Silk Road Source Article
Vegetarian capsule becomes new trend of international dietary supplement market in 2020

You May Like