opinion

Anti-Obamacare ex-sheriff wants you to pay his bills

You may or may not remember former sheriff Richard Mack.

He was in the news a lot in Arizona for a few years. Sort of a second string Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Mack was the sheriff in Graham County for years. He ran for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. He was a vehement opponent of President Obama's immigration policy and of the Affordable Care Act. After leaving office he became a founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, an organization that rails against the federal government.

Now, according to an article in Talking Points Memo and other websites, Mack is ill, and his wife is ill, and he is uninsured and asking for regular folks to foot his bills.

We can all appreciate the irony of this.

But, please, do not gloat.

Mack started a GoFundMe account that appears to be nearing its goal of raising $30,000 for his family's medical bills. (The article says he had a heart attack.)

It's strange to read about Mack asking for support from regular folks. It comes from a man who has written on his website: "The States can stop every bit of it! That's right, the individual States can stop 'Obamacare' and all other forms of out-of-control federal government mandates and 'big brother' tactics."

Mack was a supporter of renegade rancher Cliven Bundy and the "sovereign" movement.

But it's

funny how the frailties of human health eventually remind each of us that we are not in this life alone. It's not funny in a "ha ha" way, of course, although in some of the stories I've read about Mack's problems there is evidence of readers taking some pleasure in his misfortune.

That shouldn't happen.

We should be better than that, even if Mack or those like him are not, and even if Mack continues to believe that providing affordable health care for Americans -- including him and his wife -- is somehow evil or out-of-control or big brotherish. One way or another, all of the rest of us wind up paying for those with no health insurance.

Other countries have figured this out and done something about it. We're in the messy process of trying.

The former sheriff has done a lot of talking about these issues over the past several years, saying the federal government should have no role. Now, his own fragile body is doing the talking.

It's telling him he's wrong.

It's telling everyone that he's wrong.

I hope -- really hope -- that Mack and his wife make full recoveries. And I hope as well that when they get better they seek out a health insurance plan, perhaps through the Affordable Care Act.

And that they become advocates for everyone else getting coverage, too.