Wherein the Support the Dream Defenders (or "StDD") discuss the who, what, where, how, and why of sending a FOIA demand to your governor to save lives in your state. We are organizing a lawful method to advance the dreams of MLK. Support the Dream Defenders successfully crowdsourced a law. Now, we're asking for your help in crowdsourcing a new initiative.
I. SOME BACKGROUND
Support the Dream Defenders is a Daily Kos group which was founded in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of his murderer. The group has shone a spotlight on acts of criminal and social injustice, and it has used the law to seek advantage in the fight for equality and justice. Last year, the group crowdsourced the development of a new law because of the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The proposed law is called The Michael Brown Over-Policed Rights Act, and it is intended to empower people to sue violent police departments. On the national level, the NAACP and the ACLU have reviewed the bill with approval. The ACLU has indicated it would "partner" with our group on the law, and the NAACP has indicated that it would forward the bill to members of Congress.
II. WHAT WE WANT TO ACCOMPLISH
So, what does the group hope to accomplish next? To strike a blow for social justice, again using the law as an ally in the fight. We want to send Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to Republican Governors and agencies in Red States. We want to direct the klieg lights on the refusal of Tea Party governors to expand medicaid. Let me pose this question:
Which will claim more lives in 2014 and 2015: Ebola in Africa or Republican governors in the United States who refuse to expand Medicaid?
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According to a Harvard study, there may be as many as
17,000 people dying annually in the United States because Republican governors refused to expand Medicaid for no humane or decent reason. Millions will be uncovered in the so-called Medicaid Gap because of the blithely murderous decision of these politicians to refuse to expand Medicaid. Many of their constituents could have used mammograms, biopsies, $10-for-a-three-month's-supply of high blood pressure medicine, insulin, routine physical examinations, as well as blood, urine, and stool assays that would have discovered these health issues and others.
The latest reports involving Ebola put the number of cases at 21,161, with a total of 8,414 reported deaths. As cruel and evil and vicious as the Ebola virus is, it will have to up its game and make a strong comeback to hope to match the destructive power of a handful of Republican Governors.
Which of these grave and horrible health care stories received attention from the media? Which of those stories burned up the air and radio waves before the mid-term elections? Which story needs a helping hand to obtain the coverage it deserves? Our group would like to provide that helping hand. To do that, we will ask Republican Governors a Catch-22 question about their refusal to expand Medicaid. (Actually, when you have made an intentional decision to blithely allow the deaths of thousands of your constituents, any question is a Catch-22 question.).
Once we have responses to our requests, our group plans to publish them on Daily Kos and send them around the globe to news agencies, Rachel Maddow, social justice organizations and everyone with a microphone or a blog. Republican governors have made decisions that would shock Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. This War on the Working Poor and this murder must stop!
III. WHAT WE'VE DONE: A NEW HOPE
Members of the group Support the Dream Defenders have sent out Freedom of Information Act requests to a few of the Republican Governors in Red States. For a detailed "How-to" about the process of sending FOIA requests to state officials, please see this diary. For now, I will remind readers of what requests we've made of the Republican Governor and her Department of Health in South Carolina:
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT / PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST
Any and all public records, as that term is described in the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act--excluding any legal correspondence that would violate the attorney/client privilege--reporting on or describing the Office of the Governor of the State of South Carolina's specific programs or directives or orders or pronouncements or initiatives created to track the number of deaths caused, or potentially caused, by the Governor's Refusal to Expand Medicaid.
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That request was sent to Governor Nikki Haley. As you can see, it is basically a Catch-22 question, asking her what efforts she has made to document, or to at least discover, how many people she is letting die because she won't Expand Medicaid. The next requests were sent to the South Carolina Department of Health:
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT / PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST
(1) Any and all public records, as that term is described in the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act--excluding any legal correspondence that would violate the attorney-client privilege and excluding any information or data that might identify any patients, reporting on or describing any specific programs or directives or orders or pronouncements of the South Carolina Department of Health, or unit of same, to track the number of deaths caused, or potentially caused, by the Governor's Refusal to Expand Medicaid.
(2) A summary maintained by the South Carolina Department of Health, or unit of same--but not showing any names, addresses, social security numbers or other identifying information of patients, and excluding any legal correspondence that would violate the attorney-client privilege--of the number of uninsured persons in the State of South Carolina who were treated in emergency rooms and/or hospitals and/or health clinics in the State of South Carolina during the last fiscal or calendar year or twelve-month or other stated period (depending on how the record is constructed).
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As you can see, the first request is similar to the one sent to Governor Haley. The second involves information that would be likely at hand to the Department of Health. Well, what happened next?
IV. RESPONSE FROM THE EMPEROR: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
The Emperor refused to respond. Although the South Carolina FOIA law gives Governor Haley fifteen business days to respond, she has not done so in twenty-eight business days. More on that later. Here are the post offices return receipts showing that the Governor and the Department of Health received their respective requests:
The South Carolina Department of Health did respond. In a letter dated December 22, 2014, the SCDoH, through its Assistant General Counsel, provided a cover letter and one bit of spreedsheet. This is the cover letter:
In pertinent part, the letter provides as follows:
This is in response to your request for information from the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) pursuant to the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) dated December 1, 2014 and received by DHHS on December 2, 2014. DHHS does not have any responsive documents to (1) of your request. In response to (2) please find enclosed an excel spreadsheet containing the information you requested.
Our expense for extracting this information is forty and 00/100 dollars ($40.00). Please make the check payable to the Department of Health and Human Services and send it to....
V. THE NEXT MOVE: RETURN OF THE PESKY
Just as we thought, Governor Nikki Haley has not asked the Department of Health to find out who, and how many people, she is killing by refusing to Expand Medicaid. Yet, we do not have a response from the Governor herself. This must be remedied. She might claim, at a later date, that she had a "private panel" look into the matter or some kind of a blue ribbon commission or whoknowswhatitsSouthCarolina.
To begin to remedy this, we will send out another Certified Letter, Return Receipt requested to the Governor, noting that she is now in violation of the law, and indicating our willingness to have a Circuit Court decide the matter.
We also need more information from the South Carolina Department of Health. Although they did acknowledge that the Governor is ignoring the Albatross around her neck, their spreadsheet came up a little light in other information. In just four sentences, we are told that 3,228 separate uninsured individuals made 15,813 visits to South Carolina emergency rooms within the last fiscal year (as of November 30, 2014).
How many died? How many are dying now? Who paid for these emergency room visits? What followup does the Department of Health employ to find answers to these questions?
Of note, the South Carolina Department of Health's response arrived in my mailbox in this envelope:
Notice anything sadistically ironic about that letter? Here, have a closer look at the upper left-hand corner:
That's right, at the very top of the South Carolina Department of Health's envelope and letter, which explained that the Governor apparently doesn't give a good damn about how many of her constituents are dying because she couldn't connect the dots between healthcare and health, there's the phrase, "Healthy Connections."
VI. HOW YOU CAN HELP
(a) Help us "crowdsource" our response in South Carolina. What documents should we seek? How should we couch the requests? What else should we do?
(b) We need volunteers in the states listed below to send FOIA requests to their state's Governor or Health Department. There are folks who will help you with your requests, including JoanMar, 2thanks and others. Just send our group a private message! Some states have already made a little progress. If you want to help with any state's efforts, let us know in the comments or here. Here are the states where we need coverage (note that each state name in the chart below includes a link to that state's FOIA resource material):
The chart above was provided by the masterful 2thanks. This, from the inimitable JekyllnHyde: