Oklahoma just recently passed the Medicaid expansion via direct vote. The government did its best to stop it, but the voters ended up prevailing.
So what do they do? Instead of just running a Medicaid program as intended and as their constituents demanded, they did their best to privatize the Medicaid expansion.
This week BCBS, Humana, and i believe Edna now run our Medicaid program. Basically the governor is just throwing millions of dollars at them and allowing them to decide what and who is covered.
Because the red is largely just a map of poor areas on average.
Aside from preventative care, Medicare generally doesn't pay for all medical expenses, just a percentage. When you're left paying 20% coinsurance for most urgent needs you get saddled with massive debt you can't climb out of. Medicaid covers more of the gap but is still limited. Private plans more commonly cover 100% after a deductible. Some states like Massachusetts have chosen to expand it further than other states. We're a bad example for this map though because we have so few counties.
The entire map could be 0 mean debt if we had true single payer healthcare.
It's also interesting seeing how this is a mean, not median. I suspect if median was shown almost all counties would be 0. There's a lot more stats that could be used to show why the southern states are losing out though.
some red? I don't understand. Do you think the expanded medicaid is a cure all? Its not universal healthcare it just reduces the red from where you see it in the intense red areas.
More than a dozen? Something is seriously wrong in these states and I want to know why Medicaid expansion didn't fix it. There's an explaination, don't just handwave it away.
Some people can get free health insurance if they jump through enough hoops and paperwork but when you actually have to use it it turns out it only covers the first $3.50.
Texas is not those states. Texas is deep red and always has been. Sure you can use that argument with swing states, but Texans would vote for a cannibal serial killer if he had a R in front of his name.
Even after the massacre of their children, Uvalde county overwhelmingly voted Abbott, and reelected all the judges and sheriffs who did nothing while their kids died. Clearly Texans don't even care about their kids or state, so why should I? They get what they vote for and my sympathy is at an end
Some texans have shit opinions yeah but there are a lot of people in texas and many of them simply do not have a say in policy not only due to gerrymandering but also due to wealth. You'll find that conservative controlled states are often much more blatant in their preference for the owning class and unfortunately this means significantly worse social policy and a much more reactionary populace. Designating an entire state as barbaric or deserving of their treatment is just a form of orientalism.
The graphs aren't too important to my point but I had them on hand and thought you may find them interesting. I also want to stress that I am from Texas and very much not part of the right. No amount of voting harder here will fix anything
Debt is power. If you're in debt, someone has power over you. This isn't an accident, there is no surprisePikachu, it's a purposeful decision to reject anything that would help people retain their own power over their lives.
So low income people in states that didnt expand medicaid also dont qualify for any subsidies for private insurance. Its a big problem with the ACA that Biden campaigned on fixing. Not a word on it since elected.