Red States are Welfare Queens!

Don't believe the moralistic posturing of the Republican Senators on the Senate Finance Committee. Red States are Deadbeats. They depend on Blue States support them, allowing them to live above their means. Only one of the states that voted against Obama in the last election gets less back from federal taxes than it pays in. That state is Texas. The rest are on the dole. And even gilded Texas contributes less per dollar than 15 other states that are all Democratic.

The real "income redistribution" issue in this country is not between rich and "poor" (aka :"minorities," "slackers," "aliens," "my ex-girlfriend," "pinko commies" etc) BUT between Democratic states and Republican states. It's not about the "irresponsible poor" or the feckless uninsured but about corruption, greed, quackery and deception so bold it does not shy from declaring the Bible to be Too Liberal.

What makes this situation utterly tragic is that there are states with large Democratic majorities (such as California and Illinois) that are suffering under the current arrangement. They contribute disproportionately to other states when their own populations could benefit from improved health access and quality.

When the Senators on the Finance Committee who represent Red States claim to be worried about going bankrupt, don’t believe then.  When they say their people's health care will be worse, don’t believe them. When they say reform will take away their freedoms of their people, don’t believe them. Instead, check out the facts.

The sort order for the table below is the one I find most helpful, Party designation first (by whether they voted for Obama in 2008) and then by RR or Redistribution Ratio -- based on how much of each State's federal dollars (collected as revenue) are returned to the State. This data is from The Tax Foundation and is from 2005, the last year available.

Key dependent variables are the measure of health quality from the Agency of Health Quality and Research and measures such as the percentage of people uninsured in the state. Other data is provided because it is mitigating or explanatory. Examples are cost-of-living adjustment and average Medicaid payment per enrollee. Check out Arizona and Texas' Medicaid payments -- and they complain that doctors don't want to see Medicaid patients!

Also, check out this EXCELLENT resource, published last week by the Commonwealth Fund, Aiming Higher:: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance, 2009. Go to the fourth page of the Aiming Higher:Executive Summary and Ponder.

Although just the basic "facts" are presented here, I don't know of another source than this that has combined these three vectors on a State-to-State basis:

1. Inter-State Redistribution of Federal Tax Collections

2. Health Care Quality and

3. Financial and Coverage Data.

STATE STATISTICS IN A NUTSHELL

ST	P	RR	Rank	Health Quality	COL	Income	StTax	%Unins	%Pov	%Mcare	%Mcaid	$Mcaid	%Minor
NJ	D	$0.61	50	Hi Avg	129.4	64,070	5.50	14.9	9.2	15	11	7,869	38.83
NV	D	$0.65	49	Med Weak	109.2	55,440	4.24	18.1	10.8	13	11	4,490	42.86
CT	D	$0.69	48	Hi Avg	127.8	65,644	5.82	9.7	8.1	15	15	7,598	26.19
NH	D	$0.71	47	Lo Strong	118.2	68,175	2.51	10.4	7.0	15	11	6,047	6.87
MN	D	$0.72	46	Lo Strong	104.3	57,607	6.09	8.5	9.9	14	15	7,129	14.59
IL	D	$0.75	45	Hi Weak	96.7	53,889	4.59	13.2	12.3	14	19	4,129	35.29
DE	D	$0.77	44	Med Avg	102.8	53,695	6.25	11.0	9.6	16	22	5,152	31.65
CA	D	$0.78	43	Med Avg	136.6	57,445	5.56	18.5	14.6	12	29	2,740	57.73
NY	D	$0.79	42	Med Avg	127.1	50,643	6.63	13.6	14.2	15	27	7,927	39.99
CO	D	$0.81	41	Hi Avg	105.7	62,217	3.13	16.2	11.0	12	12	4,759	29.00
MA	D	$0.82	40	Lo Strong	120.5	60,515	5.55	5.4	11.3	16	19	6,961	20.79
WI	D	$0.86	39	Med Strng	95.8	52,224	5.13	9.0	9.8	15	18	4,440	14.95
WA	D	$0.88	38	Med Avg	103.4	58,472	4.69	11.9	10.4	14	19	4,388	24.51
MI	D	$0.92	37	Lo Strong	97.0	50,528	4.90	11.7	13.0	15	18	4,199	22.52
OR	D	$0.93	36	Lo Avg	114.3	51,947	3.68	16.6	10.6	15	14	4,272	19.97
FL	D	$0.97	34	Hi Weak	103.6	46,206	4.23	20.2	13.1	17	17	4,204	39.66
RI	D	$1.00	33	Lo Strong	122.0	54,767	4.80	11.3	12.7	17	19	8,082	21.17
OH	D	$1.05	31	Lo Avg	93.4	48,960	4.69	11.6	13.7	16	18	5,768	17.51
IN	D	$1.05	30	Hi Weak	92.8	47,898	4.88	11.9	14.3	15	16	4,907	16.80
PA	D	$1.07	28	Med Avg	102.0	50,850	5.08	9.8	11.0	18	17	4,832	28.61
NC	D	$1.08	27	Med Avg	96.7	44,058	5.61	16.0	13.9	15	19	4,943	32.79
VT	D	$1.08	26	Hi Avg	117.9	49,959	8.20	10.3	9.0	17	26	5,096	4.85
IA	D	$1.10	24	Hi Avg	93.4	50,465	4.55	9.4	9.5	17	15	5,600	9.72
MD	D	$1.30	18	Lo Avg	127.6	65,932	4.47	12.9	8.7	13	14	6,600	42.28
ME	D	$1.41	13	Hi Avg	112.7	48,481	5.77	9.6	12.0	19	23	7,775	4.75
HI	D	$1.44	12	Med Avg	162.8	64,002	6.24	7.9	9.9	15	17	4,484	75.11
VA	D	$1.51	10	Med Avg	100.6	61,710	3.84	13.8	10.3	14	11	4,840	33.08
NM	D	$2.03	1	Hi Weak	101.4	44,081	6.49	23.2	19.3	15	26	4,521	58.26
TX	R	$0.94	35	Hi Weak	90.5	47,157	3.89	25.2	15.9	11	17	3,367	52.62
GA	R	$1.01	32	Hi Weak	91.4	48,369	3.88	17.8	15.5	12	19	3,296	41.89
UT	R	$1.07	29	Med Avg	95.0	59,062	3.68	13.0	7.6	10	12	5,005	18.29
NE	R	$1.10	25	Lo Strong	89.8	50,896	4.60	12.6	10.6	15	14	5,915	15.88
WY	R	$1.11	23	Lo Avg	102.4	51,977	7.83	13.7	10.1	14	16	5,056	13.17
KS	R	$1.12	22	Lo Avg	91.4	49,119	5.20	12.5	12.7	15	13	5,578	19.71
AZ	R	$1.19	21	Lo Avg	106.3	47,972	4.40	18.9	18.0	13	23	2,206	41.61
ID	R	$1.21	20	Med Avg	93.1	49,247	4.87	14.8	12.2	14	15	4,799	14.88
TN	R	$1.27	19	Hi Weak	88.3	41,240	4.50	14.8	15.0	16	25	3,975	22.92
MO	R	$1.32	17	Med Avg	90.3	46,906	3.95	12.6	13.3	16	18	4,387	17.86
SC	R	$1.35	16	Med Avg	95.5	44,034	4.29	16.1	14.0	16	22	4,165	34.80
OK	R	$1.36	15	Hi Weak	88.4	45,494	5.12	16.0	13.6	16	20	4,063	28.61
AR	R	$1.41	14	Hi Weak	90.4	40,974	6.44	17.0	15.3	18	27	3,676	24.35
MT	R	$1.47	11	Hi Avg	105.0	44,116	5.76	15.9	12.9	16	12	5,617	12.08
KY	R	$1.51	9	Hi Weak	92.2	41,058	5.74	14.8	17.1	17	20	4,870	12.22
SD	R	$1.53	8	Lo Strong	90.5	49,901	3.29	11.4	13.1	16	15	5,072	13.94
AL	R	$1.66	7	Lo Avg	92.0	44,155	4.41	12.0	14.3	17	21	4,015	31.55
ND	R	$1.68	6	Lo Strong	95.1	49,325	7.31	11.0	11.8	16	11	6,925	10.39
WV	R	$1.76	5	Lo Avg	94.6	40,851	6.58	14.6	14.5	20	22	5,682	6.51
LA	R	$1.78	4	Lo Weak	94.4	41,232	6.05	19.3	18.2	15	25	3,563	38.08
AK	R	$1.84	3	Med Avg	128.9	64,701	18.97	19.4	8.2	8	18	7,644	34.26
MS	R	$2.02	2	Med Weak	97.0	37,579	5.99	18.4	18.1	16	27	4,144	41.33
USA	D	$1.00	25	Med Avg	100	51,233	5.40	15.4	13.20	15.0	20.0	4,575	n/a
Src:	Map	TaxFnd	Rank	AHRQ	Top 50	Kaiser	[calc]	Kaiser	Kaiser	Kaiser	Kaiser	Kaiser	CNN

P = (2008) Democrat vs Republican, based on 2008 Presidential vote.
RR = (2005) Redistribution Ratio. The amount of federal tax dollars received per dollar contributed.
Rank = (2005) From lowest to highest Redistribution Ratio.
Quality = (2005) Of health services provided to citizens, derived from data available from HHS' Agency for Health Care Quality and Research. [see AHRQ's disclaimer at end of this post.*]
COL = (2008) Cost of Living adjustment.
State Tax = (2008) Average state tax for $60K.
Uninsured = (2008) Percent uninsured.
Medicaid = (2006) Percent on Medicaid.
Mcaid Pymt = (2006) Average Medicaid cost per year per enrollee.

*AHRQ Disclaimer: "Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the electronic documents and resources provided on this Web site. However, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) makes no warranties, expressed or implied, regarding errors or omissions and assumes no legal liability or responsibility for loss or damage resulting from the use of information contained within.

"AHRQ and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cannot endorse, or appear to endorse, derivative or excerpted materials, and it cannot be held liable for the content or use of adapted products that are incorporated on other Web sites. Any adaptations of these electronic documents and resources must include a disclaimer to this effect."

Kaiser: Statehealthfacts.org is a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and is designed to provide free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health data on all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States.  Statehealthfacts.org provides the latest data on more than 500 health, health care, and health policy topics, comparable across all states.

Additional data at Auriandra's blog at hy61blues.

Aiming Higher:Executive Summary