Killing Off The Poor For Votes And Profit

The map above shows the sad plight of poor people in America -- people who have no health insurance and cannot afford to get the preventive care that would save (and lengthen) their lives. The colors on the map show the percentage of the population in that county who delay getting medical treatment because they simply cannot afford it. When they are finally so sick they cannot put medical care off any longer, they wind up in emergency rooms. Unfortunately, for many of them, by that time it is too late for effective treatment -- treatment that could have saved their lives if received earlier.

The yellow counties have between 6.5% and 13.4% of their population delaying medical treatment. For the light orange and orange counties, the percentage is between 13.5% and 17.1%. The red counties have between 17.2% and 19.7% delaying medical care. And the darkest red counties have between 19.8% and 40.6%. In those counties, between 2 and 4 out of every 10 people must risk their lives by delaying medical care. This is inexcusable in the richest nation in the world, especially since all other developed nations provide health insurance for all their citizens. (Note -- the gray counties are those where no data is available to determine the percentage who delay care.)

One of the objectives of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was to fix this problem. It asked the states to expand the Medicaid program (with the federal government paying all of the costs for the first 10 years, and then 90% after that). That expansion would have created uniform rules for qualifying for Medicaid in all 50 states, with anyone making less than 133% of the poverty level qualifying. Currently, each state makes its own rules about who qualifies for Medicaid -- and in many states, like Texas, most of the poor don't qualify for it (because the rules for qualifying are exceptionally stringent).

Note that many of the states where the highest percentage of people have to delay treatment for financial reasons are in the South (where Republicans control the state governments). In Texas alone, more than 28% of the population does not have health insurance -- and it is estimated that expanding Medicaid (as dictated by Obamacare) would provide coverage for more than 1.5 million people. Refusing to expand Medicaid, as Republican Governor Rick Perry has done, assures that hundreds (if not thousands) of that 1.5 million will die each year because they could not get preventive care.

To be blunt, the states (like Texas) that refuse to expand Medicaid are unnecessarily killing off the poor -- and they are doing it to get votes by satisfying the mean-spirited ideology of their base voters (who think health insurance and health care should be reserved only for those who can pay for it). They don't believe health care is a fundamental human right, and simply don't care that their policies are killing many Americans every year -- mostly among the poor.

They will tell you that government just can't afford to cover health care for everyone. That is a lie. If every other developed nation can afford it, then so can the United States (the richest nation of all). These same Republicans have no problem finding money for giveaways to the rich and the corporations. They have no problem finding the money to fight unnecessary wars. But they can't seem to find a nickel to help this nation's poor and disadvantaged.

Republicans are in the business of helping the rich and the corporations, and they are willing to kill off the poor to do that. That may sound harsh, but it is the truth.