XPost: alt.atheism, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa.republican   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats.d, alt.politics.trump, alt.religio   
   .christian.roman-catholic   
   XPost: alt.politics, alt.politics.democrats, alt.politics.republicans   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: js@phendrie.con   
      
   This is a bit of an old story, but almost certainly nothing has changed —   
   certainly not the benighted thinking of the state's Republiscum/QAnon rulers   
   —   
   and a chance to dump on Mississippi can't be passed up.   
      
      
      
   By Michael Hiltzik | Business Columnist   
   Oct. 29, 2014 7:51 AM PT   
      
    From Politico and Kaiser Health News comes this jaw-dropping look at   
   Mississippi, the national graveyard of the Affordable Care Act’s promise:   
      
       “There are wide swaths of Mississippi where the Affordable Care Act is   
   not a   
       reality,” Conner Reeves, who led Obamacare enrollment at the University   
   of   
       Mississippi Medical Center, told me when we met in the state capital of   
       Jackson. Of the nearly 300,000 people who could have gained coverage in   
       Mississippi in the first year of enrollment, just 61,494 — some 20   
   percent —   
       did so. When all was said and done, Mississippi would be the only state in   
       the union where the percentage of uninsured residents has gone up, not   
   down.”   
      
   The author, Kaiser Health News correspondent Sarah Varney, ascribes the   
   state’s   
   failure to errors, ignorance, racism and tea party-style ideology, among other   
   distasteful qualities. The majority of the 138,000 Mississippians left stranded   
   by the state’s refusal to opt in to Medicaid expansion are black. Hospitals,   
   which were counting on the expansion to make up for federal funding they’ll   
   be   
   losing as the ACA takes hold, are unable to serve the uninsured even as charity   
   cases.   
      
   What makes Mississippi typical among Medicaid-refusing states is that its   
   health   
   statistics are dismal. What makes it stand out is that its socio-economic   
   statistics are the worst in the nation. Varney again: “It’s hard to find a   
   list   
   where Mississippi doesn’t rank last: Life expectancy. Per capita income.   
   Children’s literacy.”   
      
   Even before opting out of Medicaid expansion, the state’s Medicaid standards   
   were medieval. Adults aren’t eligible unless their household income is 22% of   
   the federal poverty line or less. For a family of four, that’s $5,544 a year.   
   Only one state is lower: Alabama.   
      
   The Mississippi story documents what can happen when a state’s privileged   
   elites   
   are determined to undermine a social program. Contrast that with the experience   
   of Kentucky, where the state’s (Democratic) governor, Steve Beshear, pushed   
   aggressively to implement the law and ended up with what may be the nation’s   
   best record for covering the uninsured. And Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has   
   the   
   gall to assert the ACA is “a large burden” for his state.   
      
   Don’t let it be said that Mississippi is resting on its laurels. As Roy   
   Mitchell, the executive director of the struggling Mississippi Health Advocacy   
   Program, told Varney, “We work hard at being last.”   
      
   https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-the-shame-of-m   
   ssissippi-20141029-column.html   
      
   "We work hard at being last."  That really should be the official state motto.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)