Eat Sh**T & Die

On to our chart. One note: most states have different levels for working and non-working people; the levels are higher for those with jobs. I've used the figures for working families. The bars in red are the states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion, and as you can see, almost all of them are clustered at the lowest end of the eligibility spectrum. That means that the states where the Medicaid expansion would have done the most good for the most people are precisely those states where Republican governors and legislatures have told their poor citizens that they're out of luck.

National politicians are covered by generous HC packages as we all know. Full boat stuff that these geniuses will get for the REST OF THEIR LIVES after serving one term, thanks to our stupid largess, gives them a huge leg up on living large but if your a poor rube living in, for the most part, a repubican-governed southern state that refused Medicare Expansion, the chances of getting medicare, unless said rube is truly poor, is chancy at best.

Many people are talking today about this article in today's New York Times, which focuses on the particularly cruel doughnut hole created when the Supreme Court allowed states to opt out of the expansion of Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act. The problem is that if you live in a (mostly Southern) state run by Republicans, you have to be desperately poor to qualify for Medicaid under existing rules. But it isn't until you get to 133 percent of the poverty level ($31,321 in yearly income for a family of four) that you're eligible for subsidies to buy insurance on the exchanges, because when the law was written the idea was that everyone under that income would get Medicaid. When all those Southern states decided to refuse the Medicaid expansion in order to shake their fist at Barack Obama, they screwed over their own poor citizens. So millions of people will be caught in the middle: not poor enough to get Medicaid, but too poor to get subsidies on the exchanges. But when we say "not poor enough," what we're talking about is people who are, in fact, extremely poor. And you'll be shocked to learn that in those states, the poor are disproportionately black. Could that have anything to do with it? Heavens, no!

This is where education comes in because if people truly understood how the ultra rich game the system by doing the us against them bit, they would revolt and vote the bastards out of office who have systemically screwed the citizens they are suppose to represent. 

Scott Walker anyone?

Addendum: Click here to access the NY Times post. Click the graphic to access the superb interactive NY Times map to see how Americans are getting shafted by our wonderful politicians.