If you are going to come down with some kind of health problem, make sure it happens to you in a Blue democratic state and not a red Republican one. At least that is what we can conclude from study after study on the status of healthcare in America. According to Fox News and its report "Ten Worse States for Healthcare" on FoxNews.com on July 30, 2014, the states with the worse healthcare systems are all red states. We all know that democrats and republicans view healthcare in completely different ways. Democrats see healthcare as a "right" that has to be available to all citizens regardless of their financial status. This is a more socialistic approach to healthcare and similar to those in England, France, Australia, Russia, Canada and other industrialized capitalist nations. Liberal democrats believe that universal healthcare can be accomplished in America the same way it has been done through out the rest of capitalist world - through a tax funded system that keeps profiteering from dominating the industry. Republicans on the other hand view healthcare as a "privilege" for those with health insurance and/or the financial ability to pay for services. If you do not have health coverage than you are on your own. This is very much what the conservative playbook is all about - profit making. The modern day GOP is a party of predatory capitalism at its worse.
Texas is a red state with one of the worse healthcare systems in the United States. At present Texas has become the center of the Ebola story. Rick Perry and others are trying to hide and skip over the ACTUAL cause of the entire Ebola issue in Texas. A man flew into Texas carrying the Ebola virus. As soon as the hospital found out he did not have health insurance - they sent him home with some antibiotics. Had he been insured with a gold type policy that hospital would have run all kinds of tests on the patient - perhaps even convinced him to stay in the hospital a few days. Tests would have then shown the severity of his illness and thus preventing the chaos. But that did not happen because he did not have insurance coverage. The fact that he told the staff he had come from Africa did not matter because it is the issue of MONEY that supersedes everything else.
Healthcare in America is all about MONEY!!! American healthcare exists for profiteering purposes, not healthcare delivery. And nearly all hospital corporations are run by predatory capitalists with CEOs paying themselves million dollar salaries on the back of the sick and the poor. It is the center of vulture capitalism. A few months ago Diane Sawyer reported on World News Tonight how hospitals buy pills at $.03 each then charge patients $65 for the same pill. Of course hospitals have their canned explanation that they have been telling us for generations. They claim that 'so many people have no health insurance - therefore you have to overcharge the ones with insurance'. The fact is that these same corporate entities have been fighting healthcare reform for generations. The medical industry DOES NOT want everyone to have healthcare coverage. Because that would influence, change, and perhaps even end the cash cow industry that they have now.
The real reason for the astronomical overcharges in the health industry is due to profiteering. In effect it is due to the the millions and millions of dollars in salaries that are paid to CEOs and top officers and stockholders of those companies. Insurance companies, hospital corporations, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and so forth with salaries that are beyond belief. And that money has to come from somewhere. So when you go to the ER with a broken leg, you will be lying on a $15,000 or $20,000 bed. A bed with all kinds of whistles and lights and gadgets etc which will have no impact on your broken leg but will certainly impact your medical bill! Because that hospital bed manufacturer's CEO has to get his $5 or $10 million salary along with all the executives who collect additional millions.
So Texas is a good example of what is lacking in the entire healthcare system. As recent as July 2012, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that Texas had the very worse healthcare system in the nation.Those findings were published in reports from the Associated Press on July 5, 2012. Even before that report came out, Texas had been found to have terrible ratings in its healthcare system. In 2007 one study showed Texas at number 49 out of 50 states on healthcare.
The Fox report mentioned above, indicated that Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alaska, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio all comprise the very bottom list for healthcare delivery and access in America. Kentucky has recently seen a rise in its healthcare ratings but only because of the implementation of Obamacare in that state. Something Mitch McConnell will probably attempt to eliminate. Republicans believe that healthcare is a privilege and in those states voters are willing to go along with it.Those states that score the worse are ones that have refused to expand medicaid services to its poor population. They hate the Obama administration and see Obamacare as a form of "socialism" that creates obstacles to profit making. Even though the actual Obamacare act was developed and basically written by republicans during the Clinton years and used to get the country to go against Hillarycare. Much of what goes on in republican politics is fueled and pushed by predatory capitalists who place profiteering above everything else. Americans may be politically naive but when they saw Mitt Romney - they immediately knew the meaning of predatory capitalism. That might very explain why they stuck with President Obama.