In a Thursday post, Daily Kos writer Jon Perr alleged that Republicans’ refusal to expand Medicaid in twenty-five states “might be the greatest act of political spite in modern American history” and claimed, citing research published earlier this year, that it could lead to more than 17,000 “needless deaths” annually.
Perr contrasted conservatives’ cavalier attitude toward that statistic with the “virulent strain of right-wing outrage” over Ebola and asserted that Americans can strengthen their health-care system by voting Democratic in next month's elections, thereby “kill[ing] the GOPer virus dead in its tracks.”
From Perr’s post (emphasis added):
News of the first reported case of Ebola virus in the United States has triggered an even more virulent strain of right-wing outrage…
Imagine, then, the foaming at the mouth response of Republicans if a health crisis was already killing up to 17,000 Americans. Every year. Imagine further that the deaths were absolutely unnecessary and entirely preventable…Ponder the fury if the government already had the funds in place to completely eradicate the scourge, but refused to spend them. The right-wing rage-o-sphere would be in the streets with pitchforks and bonfires.
Unless, of course, the killer health crisis in question was solely due to the Republicans' rejection of Medicaid expansion in over 20 states…
…Due to what might be the greatest act of political spite in modern American history, Republicans will needlessly leave millions of people uninsured, many hospitals on the edge of financial ruin and thousands of Americans dead…
Prior to the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, studies…estimated the numbers of preventable deaths among America's 50 million uninsured at between 22,000 and 45,000 a year. But as 25 plus million Americans gain coverage over the next decade…that unnecessary death toll would drop dramatically. Just not, it turns out, in the GOP-dominated states that refused to accept the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid…
That's the conclusion [of] a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School…
To put those findings in terms Republicans can understand, up to 3,000 of Rick Perry's Texans will needlessly die each year. Those dead will be joined by up to 671 from Scott Walker's Wisconsin, 1,176 in Nathan Deal's Georgia, 2,221 in Rick Scott's Florida and 1,145 in Pat McGrory's North Carolina...
Mercifully, it's not too late for Americans to immunize themselves. When they go to the polls in November, they can vote Democratic and kill the GOPer virus dead in its tracks.
