Medicaid provides coverage for people with lower incomes, older people, people with disabilities, and some families and children. (See Healthcare.gov.)
So it stands to reason that states with high poverty levels would serve their citizens well if they had Medicaid.
Two states that have opted out of the Medicaid part of the recent Healthcare Act are Texas and Louisiana. Do they have poor people? Yes, indeed – they are near the top of the list of the U.S. poverty rate! The governors of these states have decided NOT to help their poor people, which are a substantial number.
- Louisiana has 18.3% of its people in poverty, and
- Texas has 16.2% in poverty
- New Hampshire with 5.6% has the lowest poverty rate in the U.S.
- See List of U.S. states by poverty rate (2008 data).
Let’s check a few health facts to see whether it may be wise to help the poorer citizens of these two states.
- In the Dashboard on Health Care Quality Compared to All States you can see that Texas and Louisiana are very weak in preventive care needed for both poor and elderly people. These are the areas that need to be addressed to reduce the cost of healthcare.
- Texas is weak overall AND very weak in Home Health Care, Hospital Care, Diabetes Care, Heart Disease, Respiratory Diseases
- Louisiana is weak overall AND very weak in Diabetes Care, Heart Disease, Respiratory Diseases and Cancer
- New Hampshire is strong overall AND semi-week in Home Health Care (that’s it!)
- In the Focus on Healthy People 2020 the state snapshots of fifteen factors showed that more attention is needed to providing vaccines
- Flu vaccine in 2009 for those aged 65 and over
- Texas – 67.9%
- Louisiana – 68.6%
- New Hampshire – 72%
- Pneumonia vaccine for those age 65 and over
- Texas – 66.9%
- Louisiana – 70%
- New Hampshire – 72%
- Flu vaccine in 2009 for those aged 65 and over
So what do all of these numbers say? Two of the states opting out of Medicaid have very high populations of poor people. They have very weak healthcare systems. These healthcare systems are weakest in the major preventative care areas – areas which, if taken care of, are known to reduce healthcare costs. They are apparently not providing vaccines to elderly people not able to pay for them. The (well-to-do) governors are not interested in the healthcare of their poorer citizens and that is why they do not want to accept medicaid monies from the federal government.
Here is an interesting fact about these two rebellious states.
These governors are against federal spending. However, these two states accept substantial farm subsidies. So they appear to speak with forked tongue!
- Texas gets 9.3% of all U.S. farm subsidies – the highest in the nation.
- Louisiana gets only around 2% of the subsidy (is 19th of all states).
- New Hampshire (48th of all subsidies) gets so little the percent is hardly measurable.
- See Farm subsidies by state Total USDA – Subsidies by state, 1995-2011.