One of the primary reasons for passing health care reform (the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare) was to significantly reduce (if not eliminate) the huge number of people in the United States that had no health care insurance -- many because they simply could not afford it on the small income they have. And Obamacare has been pretty successful in doing that -- with over 3.1 million people under 26 being added to their parents' insurance, over 7.5 million purchasing private insurance (many with help from a government subsidy), and many millions more qualifying for Medicaid/CHIP (especially in the states that are expanding Medicaid).
But there are still millions of poor Americans who will have to remain without any kind of health insurance coverage -- and therefore unable to access the preventative care to keep them healthy. That's because the right-wing Republican governments in 24 states are refusing to expand the Medicaid program. These GOP state governments are telling their citizens they can't afford to expand Medicaid, but what they won't tell them is that they are already paying for that expansion -- they just aren't getting the benefits they are already paying for. And they also aren't getting the boost to their state's economy that the new Medicaid spending would bring (money that would circulate through the economy several times and benefit everyone).
The map above is from whitehouse.gov. It shows the states that aren't expanding Medicaid, and the number of people who will be left without health insurance in each of those states. This website estimates that at least 5.7 million people will be left out in the cold in these states. Personally, I think that is a very conservative estimate. For example, the map shows Texas would have 1.2 million without access to health insurance, but others have estimated that could be well over 1.5 million.
These Republican state governments say they are just upholding what the voters in their states want, since those voters don't like Obamacare. But that is a disingenuous position. The truth is that those voters only disagree with one provision of Obamacare (the individual mandate) -- and that is because the GOP has lied to voters and convinced many that they are going to be forced to buy insurance they cannot afford. That is, of course, not true. As many are discovering, those who truly would have trouble affording insurance will receive a subsidy from the government to help them out.
The truth is that the mandate helps keep insurance costs lower for everyone, and most people are finding they can get better insurance for less now under Obamacare -- and as they learn that, the negative attitude toward Obamacare (and the individual mandate) is decreasing. All other aspects of Obamacare, including the expansion of Medicaid, has the approval of a significant majority of Americans -- including those people residing in the red states refusing to expand Medicaid.
This is verified by numerous polls in the last few months in those states. As an example, I have included poll results below for several of those states -- Maine, Kansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, and Texas. Note that the voters in these states don't support the refusal of their state governments to expand Medicaid.
It is time for the Republicans to stop playing political games in these states. Their refusal is estimated to cause the deaths of somewhere between 7,000 and 17,000 people each year. Continuing this refusal to expand Medicaid is hard-hearted and immoral -- and it is not what the people of those states want.
