Photo courtesy Karen Kirsch
Karen Kirsch
Karen Kirsch
“I know it sounds like a cliche but at some point, you just realize what matters. To me, what really matters is trying to fix so many of the injustices that we see every day, and many have just come to accept as a normal part of life in our country,” says Karen Kirsch.
She’s the Democratic candidate for Assembly District 7, which overlaps Greenfield, West Allis and Milwaukee. The former ad agency executive is well known in local progressive circles, especially for her work since 2018 for Citizen Action of Wisconsin. Her November election bid for the Wisconsin State Legislature will be her first stand for public office, but she enters the race with a clear record.
At Citizen Action, Kirsch was primarily focused on health care for all. “My own family felt the need to start a GoFundMe for a family member who was hospitalized,” she recounts. “My job at Citizen Action was essentially, telling people it doesn’t need to be this way and that by being involved, we can make change. Stop accepting this craziness as normal. As a country, we spend more money on healthcare than any other modern country, yet we do not have better health outcomes. We leave people out. We foist medical debt on people. We make their prescriptions unaffordable. We make it a labyrinth to find mental health care and addiction treatment.”
Kirsch is alarmed by the Republican efforts to privatize Medicare, a system that has brought enormous benefits to older Americans but is sometimes poorly understood. “Again, going back to the theme that as a country, we are not getting a good deal for all the money we are spending,” she continues. “Not one family in this country should even know what medical debt is.”
Support the Common Good
Public service seems harder today than it was 30 years ago. Elected officials get flak from all sides and public service is often demeaned, not respected. Many people seem willing to sit on the sidelines, but Kirsch tossed her hat into the ring. Why?
“I think the demeaning attitude toward the elected is part of an overall plan to villainize the idea of the public commons and the public good,” she says. “The government can improve people's lives if it functions properly and the goal by some is to hobble it as much as possible and then point out, ‘Aha! We told you the government was bad, let’s make everything private!’ The people behind this goal stand to benefit financially.”
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According to Kirsch, the main issues facing Wisconsin “are the ones that impact low-income and the middle class the most—the erosion of our public schools, affordable healthcare and medical debt and reproductive freedom for women.” Fixing public school funding and investment in our children is a priority.
“Nearly every school district across the state has had to go to a referendum to meet the operational costs of their public schools,” she says. “That is a problem created by the state legislature chronically underfunding our schools and it’s pure folly as we have billions in surplus at the state level.”
Expanding Medicare
Also, “We need to accept our own Federal tax dollars that Washington D.C. is trying to send back to us and to expand Medicaid. Right now, as a state, we are spending more money to cover fewer people on Medicaid because of a 10-year-old grudge the Republican legislature has had against President Obama. It is absolute insanity. We are the only upper Midwest state to reject this money.”
Unlike some of the prominent non-residents who have run for office in Wisconsin, Kirsch has lived in her district, in Greenfield, since 2008. Even southern-tier suburbs such as Greenfield have seen a rise in homeless people. “I do think it is a marker of deepening social problems. I always say healthy people equals healthy communities. What we are seeing is a just manifestation of the fact that we aren’t investing properly in healthy people. We would rather spend $50,000 a year to incarcerate someone than to make sure they can afford their prescriptions and care. When people can’t access mental health care, addiction counseling, or afford their prescriptions to help them thrive, it's a fast slope to being evicted.”
Will the Wisconsin Legislature turn from red to blue this fall? “Even winning one house will help to make progress in this state. I urge everyone to remember to not just vote in the presidential race but vote in the down-ballot races as well. In the Milwaukee area, we need to make sure LuAnn Bird and David Marstellar are elected to flip the seats in Greenfield/Hales Corners and Oak Creek/Milwaukee. They are both healthcare champions as well. If we have the Assembly, we have a good chance of achieving some healthcare reforms.”
