Don't Get Sick in Texas if You Are Poor!

The second most populous state in the union is not a good place to get sick if you are poor.  Texas has 17.9% of their population living below poverty and the state leaders have decided not to extend health coverage to poor people. That is 4.5 million people who do not have an ability to afford health care coverage.  They are too poor to afford health care through the Affordable Health Care Act, and will not have the ability to have 100% of their coverage paid by the federal government.  Some of those living in poverty are children or elderly and so already have health coverage.  Some are disabled or have health care coverage at a job that pays below the poverty rate, but none of the 4.5 million will be able to obtain Medicaid. 

Florida, a state run by a health care executive, has also made the decision to forgo millions in federal dollars and the ability to improve the health care of probably somewhere around 1.6 million people of the 3.2 million people in Florida living in poverty.  Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina are also making the purely political decision to punish their citizens for electing democrats to federal offices.   There are 25.39 million people in the United States who are currently living below the poverty level in the United States and have picked the wrong state to live in. 

Will people in Nashville see that their neighbors in Louisville, Kentucky are doing a lot better because they have health care?  Will the residents of St. Louis, Missouri move across the mighty river to Illinois in order to get health care coverage?   Never before have people followed government benefits when living in poverty, but will they for health coverage?  Will a Dad with a disabled wife working at Hobby Lobby making minimum wage in Oklahoma City move his family to Little Rock to gain health coverage?   Will the 54 year old chronically unemployed woman in Concord, NH move across the border to Vermont so that at least her health care will be taken care of? 

We have posted a summary of the population of the states that are not going to expand Medicaid with the number of people living in poverty in those states.  We will keep those numbers updates as more and more states come off the list after seeing the errors of their ways.

Brian Davis

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