VENDOR WRITING

TENNESSEE'S HEALTHCARE 'VISION'

BY JEN A.

In a dust up over the firing of Dr. Michelle Fiscus,Tennessee's medical director for vaccine-preventable diseases, Gov. Bill Lee said that while he hadn't ordered the firing, he supported the decision. In a comment to multiple media outlets, Lee said, "Leadership at departments are empowered to make those decisions based on the vision that we set out for our departments including the Department of Health." What does that mean? Biblical hand washing perhaps?

Tennessee Department of Health commissioner, Dr. Lisa Piercey, a pediatrician for God's sake, echoed Lee's thoughts on the matter saying that the governor had every right to expect that his political will would be carried out at every level of his administration. I don't know about you, but I would rather take healthcare advice from caring medical professionals than from political hacks.

This all started when Dr. Fiscus, in doing her job, sent out a memo to all local health departments informing them of a decades-old Tennessee Supreme Court decision that stated children between the ages of 14 to17 could receive vaccinations without parental consent. It's real. She didn't make that up. It's plainly laid out in the court records.

Then the chair of the Government Operations Committee, Rep. Kerry Roberts, a farmer/businessman and state representative from a highly gerrymandered district, got his conservative tightly whiteys in a bunch and threatened to dissolve the state's health department if Fiscus didn't prohibit teens from getting the COVID-19 vaccine, or any other vaccine, without parental consent and called for her dismissal. But having watched the Tennessee Health Department carry out Gov. Lee's "vision" for nearly four years, would anyone have even noticed if Rep. Roberts had gone through with his threat to dissolve the TDH?

It is a long-standing disgrace that Tennessee politicians have repeatedly refused to expand medicaid to the working poor through the Affordable Care Act. Low-income citizens between the ages of 21 to 65 are left to suffer while Republicans hold their breath and stamp their self-righteous feet. Does anyone even remember or comprehend why Republicans so vilify the ACA? Is healing the sick that anathema to Gov. Lee's "vision"?

While Republicans posture and twiddle their thumbs, hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans have no healthcare insurance because of Lee's "vision." What has the Tennessee Department of Health done about that? Nothing!

Why have we watched so many Tennesseans suffer and die from the agonizing despair of opioid addiction? Where has the Tennessee Department of Health been as record numbers of our neighbors were, and are still, caught in the ghastly trap of those who grossly over-prescribe the poisonous "medication" to our sons and daughters, our fathers and mothers?

As long as healthcare in the state is guided by political ideology there really is no need for a Tennessee Department of Health. With or without it, we will continue to watch as our unvaccinated children are harmed by preventable diseases, as our neighbors suffer with no chance for proper medical care, and as our cities and towns are overtaken by legal pill mills on every corner. For this is Gov. Bill Lee's "vision" for Tennessee. "A vision," as my papaw used to say, '"that is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other!"

The Opposite of Love

BY JOHN H.

I wanna tell you a story. There was as man who was very intelligent, well to do and all the above. There was a time when he met this poor man who camped outside his gate. One whom he ignored and wasn’t very nice too. One thing I’ve learned in life is that I may lay eyes on a person everyday, but thing of it is, I can judge him. I can’t say what’s going through that man's heart or what that person has been through or going through. Sometimes what the eyes see is not the whole story.

Ya see, the way the rich man had acted was the reason why he ended up in Hell. I guess I’m saying this because I see so many Nashvillians following the rich man's footsteps. The church ain’t necessarily teaching them any better. It’s sad. If the preachers are afraid to speak out, put this article on your bulletin board. It’s not judging, but it's scripture. You can call it judging if you’d like because according to the Apostle Paul, I have every right to judge my Christian brothers and sisters. Get it together people, we don’t have to be afraid of what someone thinks of us, because they see us doing the right thing in front of them. I know America was built on hate but if you were Godly, you wouldn't continue in it. Don’t keep denying what’s really in your heart, ask God to change it. You make the first move, let God see this is what you want, and He’ll change you. I could never have a heart like many. The opposite of Love (lived out), Read 1st John 3rd and 4th chapter. Tell me what you think. It explains why the rich man went to Hell.