Wisconsin still gruesomely blocking health care

  More information has come out in the last week showing just how foolish and cruel the Walker Administration and Wisconsin GOP are being in refusing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).

   Harvard researchers looked at the different health outcomes that could happen as a result of states opting out of the expanded Medicaid funding,  and the projections are both frightening and disgusting.

  We estimate the number of deaths attributable to the lack of Medicaid expansion in opt-out states at between 7,115 and 17,104.  Medicaid expansion in opt-out states would have resulted in 712,037 fewer persons screening positive for depression and 240,700 fewer individuals suffering catastrophic medical expenditures. Medicaid expansion in these states would have resulted in 422,553 more diabetics receiving medication for their illness, 195,492 more mammograms among women age 50-64 years and 443,677 more pap smears among women age 21-64. Expansion would have resulted in an additional 658,888 women in need of mammograms gaining insurance, as well as 3.1 million women who should receive regular pap smears.

They also broke down the effects in individual states. In Wisconsin, the researchers estimated that over 150,000 would remain uninsured because of the Walker Administration's decision, and more than 4,000 additional Wisconsinites would face "catastrophic medical expenses."  Also, the paper estimates Wisconsin women will receive 4,000 fewer mammograms and 8,000 fewer pap smears with Medicaid not being expanded. Lastly, and worst of all, the Harvard researchers say at least 139 Wisconsinites would die each year as a result of Walker's decision, with the death toll possibly being as high as 700.

   And even among the ghoulish, Bagger-run states that have tried to sabotage Obamacare, Wisconsin has lowered itself to depths no other place is reaching. As noted by the Green Bay Press-Gazette and other outlets, Wisconsin is LAST IN THE NATION at per-capita spending in outreach and marketing geared toward help people get covered through Obamacare. In reflection of this stat, the Root River Siren had a great post on this seditious behavior by the Walker Administration, and here's a taster, where the Siren talks about the state's barriers to adding ACA navigators, which leads to a huge lack of service in the city with one of the highest unemployment rates in Wisconsin.

 Racine for example has no navigators at all. None. You have to go 25 miles to find one. No one at the county health department is one, no one in town at all.

Navigators do, however, earn a commission on enrollments. Paid by the federal government - they can earn something like $20 bucks a month for each person as long as they are enrolled. It's an incentive for community health organizations to go through the process of training a navigator and do outreach to get people insured.

That is, if you are interested in people having health insurance - which Scott Walker isn't.

If you want Obamacare to fail, then you create barrier after barrier for the people who would like to enroll others. If you create enough barriers, pretty soon you have whole cities where not one navigator exists - like Racine.

Correct-a-mundo Siren! The goal is to FUBAR Obamacare as badly as possible, and make people so unhappy with it that they'll vote for any Republican who will "reform"/ replace it. And if tens of thousands of people die, well that's just collateral damage to the ultimate goal.

 These are the kind of sociopaths we are dealing with, and they have to be removed as soon as possible.