It’s time to listen, senator

By Sister Simone Campbell

Monday, Aug. 7, 2017 | 2 a.m.

Dear Sen. Dean Heller,

I came to Nevada to meet your constituents and join the “Drive For Our Lives” nationwide bus tour. What I have learned has stirred my spirit and renewed my commitment to work for all people in our nation to have high-quality, affordable, equitable health care. However, this experience has also raised this question: How could you have possibly voted for any of the GOP health care proposals?

In Reno I met a woman named Brandi, who told us about how when her son Cooper was 4 he was diagnosed with leukemia in the pre-Affordable Care Act days. He spent three years in treatment and now has a lifetime of vigilant care. At age 13, he is in remission, but he has this cloud over him for the rest of his life due to his “pre-existing condition.” Brandi said that his medical costs in the first 12 days exceeded $350,000 just for the hospital room. The ACA has guaranteed that he will be able to have insurance beyond his early years, and will not be denied coverage because he has exceeded his “lifetime caps.” Yet you voted against this basic need for him and for so many.

Perhaps most heartbreaking for me was to hear of Brandi’s experience when she shared her son’s story on Facebook. She posted how important the ACA was for her family and how worried she was that it would be repealed. She admits it might have been a mistake, but she read the comments. Below her entry was a series of hostile comments about her son being a “moocher” and trying to bankrupt our nation. She was horrified and hurt. In the list of commenters she saw people whom she considered to be friends. To her great credit, she talked to these people both about their judgments and their views. When confronted with the human reality, she found that they softened their perspective and came to see the human dimension of what had just been frightened and frightening talking points.

Her story of personal encounter made me think of you. You have avoided meeting constituents since mid-April. And while claiming you want to make health care better, you have touted Republican proposals that would increase costs and lower the quality of care for people like Brandi and her son. This is not the sort of leadership that is expected of a U.S. senator. Failure to engage your constituents on a regular basis leaves you disconnected and ignorant of the real needs of your people and prisoner of partisan rhetoric. Your distance sets a bad example and encourages hostile behavior in your community.

I entreat you, meet with your constituents, hear their stories. You can change the direction of our nation by modeling engagement and problem solving that meets the real needs of our people. To do otherwise, makes a mockery of your position and the Constitutional responsibility you hold. You need to lead your people to form a more a more perfect union, not tear it apart.

Sister Simone Campbell is executive director of Washington D.C.-based Network, the national Catholic Social Justice lobby. She is the author of the 2014 book, “A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community.