I have a confession. I have grown fond of mixed metaphors.

Many of them are my own. Over the years, I’ve tangled myself in the briar patch of syntax and simile. When it comes to mixing metaphors, at times I’ve been a frog in a blender.

I’ve started a story in Mr. McGregor’s garden and popped my head up in a Warner Brothers cartoon after forgetting to take a left turn at Albuquerque. I’ve written about the stormy “ship of state” in one paragraph and peppered the next with so much boxing imagery that I sounded like a seasick palooka.

With the passage of time, I’ve looked back on those literary head-slappers with a sense of amusement. One day, I expect, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo will join in the laughter at his own expense.

In a recent IndyTalks conversation with CEO Jon Ralston, the subject turned to the state’s impending Medicaid crisis in the early weeks of President Donald Trump's administration. The president’s promise not to touch Medicaid aside, according to one analysis Nevada is in line to lose $1.9 billion in funding as an estimated 300,000 residents lose their insurance.

The ripple effect will be deeply felt — and not only by the poor. With approximately 800,000 Nevadans using Medicaid health care access, much of the working class relies on it as well. Their physicians and related health providers will be hit hard, too.

The state already suffers from a shortage of doctors. Imagine what may happen when they stop getting paid.

And you know what happens when people don’t have health insurance. They get treated at the local emergency room and by first responder firefighter paramedics. 

With all that, Lombardo is bound to be busy these days balancing the human needs, the financial costs and the political ramifications. That’s a lot to think about, and so when Ralston asked the question about the scale of the approaching crisis, he answered simply.

The cuts, he said, would be absolutely devastating.

“It’s almost like the pickle’s too big for the jar, right?” the governor began. “Godzilla. How can you plan for Godzilla? But you can’t put your head in the sand and hope it goes away, right?”

There it is. A mixed-metaphor souffle, a thing of beauty. And the best part is, it’s true.

Setting aside the fact they’re both green, plus-sized pickles and the infamous monster would appear to have little in common. But I see what he was getting at.

The Medicaid matter is a big problem. A big, big problem. From his perspective, too big a problem to fix at the state level. In a way, he’s right about that.

Democrats are having a field day with Lombardo’s admission that the state has no “contingency” plan. It relies on funding from the top down. The fact a cut this deep would double the number of uninsured in the state was part of the ugly, if unspoken, calculus.

Lombardo could do something, of course. Call it out of character for him, but he could be among the first of what promises to be a line of governors from red and blue states alike to stand and speak publicly with, enunciation and not equivocation, on this issue. He could, I suppose, call on the president and tell him to keep his promise not to cut Nevada’s Medicaid funding.

Like seeing Godzilla in the side-view mirror, this object is closer than it appears. In Washington, a majority of Republicans have begun making votes that will send billions to the president’s agenda priorities and set the stage for trillions in cuts to health care and other programs relied on by millions of Americans. In addition to reshaping the government to fit a framework designed by the Heritage Foundation and Trump’s worldview, it will include $4.5 trillion in tax breaks by extending those set to expire and adding new ones.

There are a lot of moving parts to it, but Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center senior fellow Joseph Rosenberg sizes it up well when he says, “If you’re extending the tax cuts and enacting tariffs and cutting Medicaid, that will deliver benefits more among higher-income households, and more of a cost will be borne by lower income households.”

Although it’s never a bad time to be wealthy, Trump plans to make the good times roll.

Trickling down to Nevada, that’s good news for some of Lombardo’s biggest political supporters, but threatens to affect health care access for hundreds of thousands of residents.

Following an all-night skirmish between the parties in Washington this week, $340 billion is set to be shifted to fund Trump’s mass deportation and border security strategy. It sounds like a lot, but I expect it will be a footnote compared to the figures that will fly in the months ahead.

Lombardo has a real test of character coming. Go with the Mar-a-Lago flow, or stand up for the neediest citizens in the Silver State.

To borrow a mixed metaphor, the sound you hear is Godzilla approaching — and the governor is in a pickle.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Readers Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.