Due to the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of uninsured people in this country has decreased dramatically over the past few months. However, there is one state where there has actually been an increase in those who lack health insurance. A study done by WalletHub finds that Mississippi is the only state that has seen its uninsured population increase since the implementation of Obamacare. Prior to the first enrollment period on the health care exchanges, Mississippi’s uninsured rate was 18.11%. It has since climbed to 21.46%, which is the second highest uninsured rate in the nation, trailing only Texas.
When presented with this information by The Daily Journal, Republican Gov. Phil Bryant knew exactly where to point the finger of blame.
“If statistics show that the ill-conceived and so-called Affordable Care Act is resulting in higher rates of uninsured people in Mississippi, I’d say that’s yet another example of a broken promise from Barack Obama.”
Of course, what the Governor failed to point out is that he has refused to expand Medicaid in his state even though his state won’t have to pay for it for the first three years, and the federal government will pay 90% of the expansion in subsequent years. What is even more dumbfounding about Bryant’s decision to not provide expanded Medicaid coverage to the state’s residents is that Mississippi is the nation’s poorest state and has largest percentage of its population living below the poverty line. Mississippi also has the highest unemployment rate in the country.
In an effort to see Obamacare fail, Bryant and other Republicans in Mississippi are going out of their way to deliberately hurt the poorest people in their state. In a state that has proven time and time again that pushing an extreme conservative ideology only makes things worse, Mississippi Republicans continue to insist that everything is the fault of liberals and Democrats. If they aren’t blaming Obama for their ills, they are claiming that not having insurance isn’t all that bad anyway. That it is really just about having a choice. Mississippi’s Speaker of the House Philip Gunn had the following to say when asked if it was good that more people in Mississippi are now uninsured.
”I don’t know if it is good or not. That is their call to make.”
The fact is, due to the high number of poor people in Mississippi, if the state agreed to expand Medicaid, over 300,000 residents would become immediately eligible. That would almost certainly bring down the uninsured numbers in the state. While the majority of red Southern states have declined to participate in the expansion, the ones that have seen huge decreases in the uninsured rates in their states. Kentucky, which also create its own state exchange, has seen its rate drop to 8.95%. It was previously at 17.3%. Arkansas has gone from 20.87% to 13.77% while West Virginia has seen a huge difference with the rate down to 6.59% after being at 17.34%
However, in states like Mississippi and Texas, the governors and Republican-dominated legislatures would rather obstruct and prevent their residents from receiving health coverage. Why? Because they hate the man currently occupying the White House. Of course, it plays well to their ‘base,’ who will support the GOP due to their own prejudices, even as they vote and act out against their own self-interests. I guess it is better to be poor, bitter and bigoted than accept anything from a Democratic black man.
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