Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

30 December 2013

Meet the candidates from Kalispell Regional Medical Center

There are at least two Republican legislative candidates in Kalispell who work for the Kalispell Regional Medical Center: Frank Garner, who is running in House District 4, old downtown Kalispell, and Tammi Fisher, who is running in Senate District 4, which comprises House Districts 7 and 8. HD-8 is adjacent to the western side of HD-7.

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KRMC is a large organization, so it would not be a surprise were more of its employees to run for office.

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Garner, the former Kalispell police chief, now heads security at KRMC. Fisher, an attorney completing her four-year term as Kalispell’s mayor, is working “…risk and contract manager for the medical practices division” at KRMC, reports the InterLake’s Jim Mann.

Perhaps that’s why on her website she writes:

As I watched the 2013 State Legislature, it became clear to me that Helena is beginning to look more like Washington D.C. than a reflection of Montana. The same people that were angling to cut employee health insurance benefits, law enforcement widows’ benefits, and women’s health care funding were collecting a Cadillac benefit package funded by the taxpayers. These were the same legislators that voted against government subsidized health insurance for Montanans all the while collecting government subsidized health insurance themselves. This sort of hypocrisy reflects the values of bureaucrats in Washington D.C. rather than the values of Kalispell, Montana.

In the eyes of her primary opponent, Speaker of the Montana House Mark Blasdel, an ardent foe of expanded Medicaid for Montana, that statement probably qualifies Fisher as a bright pink Socialist. In my eyes, it’s a statement with which Democrats could agree.

Garner, who thus far has no primary opponent (Republicans may also see him as nine feet tall and growing), says nothing about health care. His issue is law and order, and community service, no matter where he works. But I would not expect him to take health care positions that vary much from the positions taken by his employer.

There is nothing illegal about employees of KRMC running for political office, although what they and their employer do during their campaigns can get them in trouble. I’m more interested in whether this is part of a trend across the state, whether employees of hospitals, clinics, nursing home, health insurance companies, and so on are running for office, especially as Republicans. If it is a trend, I’m interested in how well coordinated it is. Health care is big business in Montana, and while the people who run it seem never to turn down a dollar from anywhere, they are not progressives, let alone single-payer advocates. Progressives should keep an eye on them.