this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (7 children)

wtf is going on in Oklahoma, Missouri, Maine, North Carolina, Indiana, etc? Expand Medicaid and still be in the red for medical debt 🤨

[–] brlemworld 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We voted to expand it but our Governor hates Missourians so they aren't doing anything with the $$

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] affiliate 15 points 8 months ago

The decision is certain to face legal challenges, which Parson acknowledged in comments to reporters after the announcement.

"yeah sorry theres no money for expanding medicaid. but of course we have the money to fight the resulting legal battles"

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] woodytrombone 12 points 8 months ago

Medicaid was expanded in NC only a few months ago, hence why we look like an un-expanded state still.

[–] just_change_it 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Maine has the oldest demographic in the US, and the lowest median income in the northeast.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

A lot of red! Look at Oklahoma! Or Missouri!

California is some red. One red county, fine.

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.

[–] colforge 10 points 8 months ago

Oklahoma’s expansion just took effect this year. Source: I FINALLY qualified.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oklahoma expanded Medicaid in 2020. Most of these states expended it over a decade ago. A lot of debt buildup occurred in that time. Not sure about the other indebted states but I wouldn't be surprised if they were similar

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Oh fk the Medicaid expansion didn't come with debt relief, of course, I guess I forgot what country this is 😒

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Now that you reduced it to two outliers fair enough. Apparently in only helps in something like 96% of cases. To repeat. Its not a cure all. Just an improvment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

🙄 I just didn't feel like retyping. Look at North Carolina and Nevada. They're so bad!

I got an answer for Missouri by the way, it's because the Republican governor won't implement the Medicaid expansion that the people vote for - that's the kind of answer I want. Stop handwaving the problem and actually critically engage with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Its not handwaving. Your just asking for things way outside of what the data shows. Yeah could be implementation as there are better and worse ways to do it, but it could also be what the rest of the states healthcare system is like. North carolina im not so sure is super red. Maybe my map knowledge is off but nevada looks a bit regional. Its possible gambling and general debt could be effecting it. It could be all sorts of things. This picturejust shows that in general expanding medicaid seems to correlate with less medical debt.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I'm asking for additional context to understand the data in the picture. Duh?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thats fine. Im not sure how many or if any studies may have been done but I certainly have no links to any for that type of inquiry. I am skeptical that anyone could give you more than a guess answer.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago

I've gotten some interesting explanations for specific states so I got what I wanted anyway🤷‍♀️

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[–] Son_of_dad 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Texas deserves what it gets honestly. These people know what the issue is but keep voting against their own interest over and over

[–] PotatoKat 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Except there are a ton of people in those States that don't vote against their interests and are gerrymandered out of winning

[–] Son_of_dad 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Texas is not deep red. Texas politics is deep red, and is set that way by gerrymandering and toooons of voter suppression tactics. Texas is about as close to going blue as you can imagine. In 2020, the democrat governor candidate got 43.9% of the vote. That's pretty dang close for being "deep red."

[–] PotatoKat 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This tells me how little you know about politics. Texas in particular has a shit ton of blue voters, mostly located in cities, but because of gerrymandering their votes are weighed less. Plus most of the blue voters in Texas are people born there while a ton of red voters are people who moved there. You're literally saying fuck you to people who don't have the means to move. One (gerrymandered) county does not make a state as big as Texas

[–] Son_of_dad 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

These people didn't slowly grip power on their own, they were voted in again and again long before anyone ever heard of what gerrymandering was

[–] PotatoKat 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just say you don't care about people dude. Like you think they should all burn for decisions that the humans living there didnt even make and were made long before them. You, typing away, not realizing you weren't born there because of the random draw of the universe.

[–] Son_of_dad 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Those poor Texans 😭 I mean I rather feel bad and help out people in third world nations, the homeless, the disabled, not Texans though.

[–] PotatoKat 1 points 8 months ago

No you don't care about the homeless or disabled otherwise you'd care about the ones who live in Texas. You know how many poor Mexicans and black people live there?

You are nothing more than reactionary that lucked out into the right political movement. Your words are near indistinguishable from conservatives I've argued with just with different nouns.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

There's a lot of people that don't vote because they think it's pointless to vote against Republicans in a red state, creating a self fulfilling prophecy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Bruh 46% of the vote in 2020 was for Biden.

Voter engagement and awareness is a serious problem, but your attempt to paint the entire state as raving fascists is at best very misguided.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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

source

related study

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] Retrograde 2 points 8 months ago

I was gonna say, wtf is going on with Wyoming

[–] disguy_ovahea 10 points 8 months ago

You don’t need medicine when you’ve got bootstraps.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

You don't need medicine when you've got guns

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does

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.

[–] NegativeInf 1 points 8 months ago

And if we all default, it's mutually assured destruction! Right? Right???

Oh wait no, just further transfer of wealth after the crash.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Im blinded at how bright Minnesota is shinning rn. Is this actually accurate?

[–] Jackal785 10 points 8 months ago

State-sponsored low-income health insurance. Gotta love MN! https://www.mnsure.org/

[–] Reddfugee42 2 points 8 months ago

Nobody shins like they shin

[–] boatsnhos931 4 points 8 months ago

Round here folks used to have something I like to call 'TEGRIDY

[–] blazera 3 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] Maggoty 1 points 8 months ago

I just realized, something is going on in Arkansas? It's surrounded by red but is more like California than the rest of the south...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Can anyone add Russia to this map? Just for comparasion.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago

Just let’m die.