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I have a terrible confession: I didn’t vote last year.
My gallbladder disenfranchised me.
The night before the election, I was walking home from a volunteer training when I started to feel a pain I’d never felt before in my lower abdomen. It was like a tiny, unhinged gnome with an ice pick trying to chisel its way out of my gut.
So I did what most people do. I waited, hoping it would eventually subside. It did not. Around midnight, I drove myself and my husband to the emergency room a few blocks away and waited more than six hours to be seen.
Around daybreak, finally escorted into a room with a medical team running and reading tests, they told me I had a large stone in my gallbladder and needed to be admitted for immediate surgery to remove the organ.
Now, you might ask why we didn’t vote early, which we normally do, or why my husband didn’t drive me to the hospital. It’s because, dear reader, he had had the exact same surgery 10 days earlier. His was planned. Mine, obviously, was not.
The surgery went fine, and I offer major kudos to the doctors and support staff who called the election hotline and tried to figure out another way for me to cast my ballot. I was discharged less than an hour before the polls closed, but there was no way I was going to be able to stand in that line.
Next year, we’ll be sure to vote long before Election Day.
In the weeks following the surgery, I remained annoyed at my medical disenfranchisement, but I was filled with an emotion that far too many Hoosiers know: the dread of wondering what those hospital bills were going to cost and how much would be covered
by insurance.
I was filled with the same dread a few years ago waiting to find out how much I’d have to pay after a family member had a medical emergency on a flight to Las Vegas. That dread also visited after the birth of each of my kids—a joyous occasion followed by months of financial fallout.
All of this is why, when I recently read a news story about Gov. Mike Braun taking on the hospitals and high health care costs this legislative session, a little voice in my head started cheering.
According to Gallup polling before last year’s election, nearly four out of five U.S. registered voters said health care was an extremely (37%) or very important (42%) issue. More recent polling from data analyst David Shor shows health care remains an important issue—and one where Democrats have a slight trust advantage.
That’s noteworthy because the trust gap on other major issues—the economy, inflation and cost of living—has, at least until recently, overwhelmingly swung toward Republicans.
I write much of this in the context of the soul-searching that Democrats (and some moderate Republicans) have been undertaking since last November. I also write it to note that the little voice in my head that was cheering for Braun taking on health care pricing wasn’t partisan.
I was reacting from a place of deep frustration with a system that literally doesn’t make any sense, and I just want someone to fix it. It’s a very raw, human feeling that has nothing to do with politics, and I’d argue that’s exactly where political folks should be focused as we head into the midterms and beyond.
These big, kitchen table issues aren’t partisan. Neither are the solutions. Candidates who understand that are likelier to forge genuine, trust-based connections with voters that hopefully will lay the groundwork to address these longer-term, systemic challenges.•
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Chartier is a lifelong Indianapolis resident and owner of Mass Ave Public Relations. Send comments to [email protected].
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