Red states are suffering brain drain, and not just in Idaho. Doctors are packing up and leaving states like Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and more.
Wyoming has one of the worst physician shortages in the country, with rural hospitals closing their maternity wards. Meanwhile, the state legislature is mulling an abortion ban that will make the problem worse. In South Carolina, more than one-third of counties have no prenatal care at all. In Missouri, rural hospitals are closing in droves.
Texas is an especially sharp example of the problem. Doctors are fleeing the state, worsening a shortage that was already at critical levels:
Almost every provider I spoke with for this story has thought about leaving their practice or leaving Texas in the wake of S.B. 8 and Dobbs. Several have already moved or stopped seeing patients here, at least in large part because of the abortion bans. “If I was ever touch a patient again, it won’t be in the state of Texas,” said Charles Brown, chair of the Texas district of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), who stopped seeing patients last year after decades working as a maternal fetal medicine specialist.
…In 2022, 15 percent of the state’s 254 counties had no doctor, according to data from the state health department, and about two-thirds had no OB-GYN. Texas has one of the most significant physician shortages in the country, with a shortfall that is expected to increase by more than 50 percent over the next decade, according to the state’s projections. The shortage of registered nurses, around 30,000, is expected to nearly double over the same period.
What? Republicans aren't satisfied having surgery performed on them by fellow Right-wingers who got their doctorate at the College of Common Sense and did their surgical residency at the Can-Do-Attitude Hospital?
I thought academia in general was a leftist plot to turn kids lgbtq that you wanted to burn to the ground?
Hey white women you probably should have recognized you were a political class that had more in common with black women and trans people than white men and voted accordingly, sorry about the next decade or so, we’ll keep trying to unfuck you
I work in research, not medicine, but I see the brain drain in my circle. We were the first to leave but many of my colleagues indicate they’ll follow soon. The relative sanity of Austin wasn’t enough to keep us in Texas.
The problem I have with this outcome are all the innocents who didn't vote for this or were too young to participate who will also be hurt along with them.
I wish taxes and services were tied to registered political party.
It's totally impractical but would be so funny for these fucks to pay tolls every time they turn onto a new road.
Need to file a police report for a stolen catalytic converter? No problem. There's just a $600 processing fee to file that report.
Need FEMA aid? Sure. We'll just look at the funds in the Republican FEMA account and the balance is ... get fucked. Here's your share of getting fucked. Have a nice life.
I guess in the long run we're getting a watered down version of it. Too bad they can't see it happening from inside Trump's rectum.
The zombie apocalypse will be the result of decades of Republicans attacks on education. Hordes of drooling hillbillies reciting Fox New talking points and threatening their fellow countrymen for reasons they are not able to articulate.
Conservatives want pure red states to live in, and they’re getting their wish granted. Though it should be noted that they were wanted that research has shown that tech and academic fields were dominated by liberal leaning people. What did they think would happen when they went full Handmaid’s Tale?
EDIT FOR THE CONSERVATIVE READING THIS:
All the smart-brain folk left. Only dumb folk remain.
one is because of high rent, the other is because it's impossible to practice medicine or survive as a gay person. the former will be solved as soon as statewide zoning reform is a thing, and some states are very slowly getting the ball rolling on that
Can you show a source on that? I'm in a heavy blue state with streaks of red in the outer eastern edge..but where the population is, it's blue... And we have had a boom in incoming residence.. I know three doctors who moved to my state specifically.
Virginia has a Republican governor and a Republican House, it's a purple state with a looming threat of abortion restrictions.
If you're talking about the broader movement of people into red states, sure - they have lower housing prices and a lot of factory jobs - but in professions like medicine and teaching where we have massive staffing shortages and jobs available everywhere, people are moving to blue states.
(and in fact, as the qualify of life in red states continues to degrade - due to climate change and the consequences of all of those professionals fleeing - you'll probably continue to see their costs of living go down, and more factories open there to take advantage of that low cost of living and the commensurately low wages they have to pay; we may ultimately find ourselves in a situation where young healthy people move to a red state for a decade or so to accumulate some savings before moving to a blue state to raise their family)