Reprinted from hartmannreport.com
Statue of Faust being tempted by Mephistopheles, Leipzig shopping centre
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Rightwing billionaires (who pay an average income tax of 3.4 percent) think the world is made up of "makers" and "takers." So what if 45,000 Americans die every year because of this callous attitude?
The easiest and laziest way for a state government to deny its citizens a benefit to which they're entitled is to wrap it in so much paperwork, make people jump through so many hoops to qualify, that they give up in confusion or exhaustion.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, one of the nation's cruelest -- he's shipped refugees out of state based on lies, put a $10,000 bounty on the heads of pregnant women, and is alleged to have ordered his own police to throw children and nursing babies into the Rio Grande River where razor wire awaits them -- is all-in on this with regard to Medicaid.
As the Texas Tribune reported this week:
"Half a million Texans have lost their Medicaid coverage since April, mostly for procedural reasons like not responding to messages from the state."
This is a big deal: 45,000 Americans die every year because they lack health insurance, including those who can't access Medicaid.
The state could have easily confirmed their eligibility with public records; most states do. But Texas' Governor Abbott wanted people to have to jump through long, complex, confusing hoops. It would mean fewer Texans would have health insurance, which is explicitly his goal and that of 10 of his Republican gubernatorial colleagues, including Ron DeSantis.
And Medicaid is consequential: it covers roughly half of all American children, pays for 40 percent of childbirths, covers 1 in 5 parents, and is the largest funder of long-term care for the elderly. It's also a key funder of substance abuse and addiction treatment, and covers more people than Medicare.
The federal government covers 90 percent of the cost of Medicaid, and 39 states have expanded their programs under Obamacare to cover all low-income people within their borders. But 11 Republican-controlled states continue to refuse to insure their low-income working people except under strict rules that limit the insurance to small groups like those who are disabled.
When the pandemic hit, the federal government forbade states from dropping people from their Medicaid rolls, but that protection expired in April and, in the months since then, Republican governors in those 11 states have been systematically stripping people of their insurance protection. None have been as enthusiastic to put their citizens at risk as Abbott's Texas.
Roughly 45,000 Americans die every year from a lack of health insurance. Many uninsured people postpone medical tests and concerns until they're fatal; others simply can't afford the cost of treatment or ongoing medications to keep them healthy or alive.
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