UPDATE BELOW: TEXAS SABOTAGING ITSELF...AGAIN!
Interesting map: The states with the highest infant mortality rates are also the states that have the highest opposition to the ACA. Also the states that consistently vote against their own best interests.
The states with the lowest infant mortality: Massachusetts and Washington.
From Juan Cole's blog:
"The high infant mortality rates are mainly a result of the economic marginalization of minorities, and opposition to Obamacare is opposition to spending public monies on righting this wrong."
Where is the concern for the precious gift of life once the fetus is born? Apparently not in the conservative Bible Belt and other tradionally conservative voting states, but in Massachusetts and Washington, two liberal states.
Here is state ranking on overall child healath system performance:
The liberal northeast is among the states that are the best in providing quality health care for children. The worst? See for yourself.
Also interesting are the states with the best and worst scores in math and science:
In infant mortality rates, Massachusetts and the state of Washington have the lowest. In math and science scores, Massachusetts is the best in the country.
Rankings on educational achievement by states (again, this chart will show that the tradionally conservative states, for the most part, do poorly, while traditionally liberal states, for the most part, do the best.
UPDATE:
"Early Monday morning, Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced that Texas won’t create a state insurance exchange nor accept expanded Medicaid funds outlined in the Affordable Care Act. In a statement, Perry said, “Neither a ‘state’ exchange nor the expansion of Medicaid under this program would result in better ‘patient protection’ or in more ‘affordable care.’”
Perry’s announcement is an especially harmful move because Texas will benefit more from the Affordable Care Act than any other state. Texas was recently ranked worst in the country for health care delivery by the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, scoring “weak” or “very weak” in nine of 12 categories. Perry’s office discounted the study as overly broad, and has argued that Texans’ real problem is personal health choices, not lack of health insurance.
More than 25 percent of Texans – 6,234,900 people – are uninsured, the highest rate in the nation. After five years of health reform, Texas would be able to insure 1,798,314 more Americans under the Medicaid expansion alone – more than any state in the nation."
*****
Charlie Pierce hammers GOP Governors Perry, Scott, and Walker to a fare-thee-well with his superb wit:
Governor Goodhair continued today:
" 'We've got some of the finest health care in the world,' he said. 'So the idea that this federal government, which doesn't like Texas to begin with, to pick and choose and come up with some data and say somehow Texas has the worst health care system in the world is just fake and false on its face.'
The federal government 'doesn't like Texas to begin with.' What are you, 14 years old? Are they not going to the prom together this year? Maybe it's because 25 percent of Texans have no health insurance, and Rick Perry thinks this is 'some of the finest health care in the world.' By this standard, if I go to the Louvre and rip off the Mona Lisa, and then bury it in my backyard, then my neighborhood has 'some of the finest artwork in the world.'
The dunces seem to be in confederacy over this whole thing, and I mean Confederacy in the fullest historical meaning. Perry's always been an adherent of a crackpot theory regarding our old friend, The 10th Amendment. There even was a book written on the subject to which someone attached Perry's name. It was the basis for his triumphant presidential campaign. But various governors from the goggle-eyed homunculus in Wisconsin to Governor Bat Boy in Florida have decided to discreetly nullify some of the federal health-care statute that recently was held to be consitutitional. 'Bobby' Jindal, the world's worst surrogate, also is on board.
Can we have a discussion now about how truly bad most of these guys are at their jobs?
Jindal's virtually handed over public education in Louisiana to charlatans and Christian nutballs. Scott Walker's going out marching in Fourth of July Parades wearing an American flag shirt made overseas a week after a Wisconsin company that makes American flags goes bankrupt. And Rick Scott is closing the hospital housing Florida's only tuberculosis treatment smack in the middle of the state's biggest tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years. And Rick Perry, who never met a big idea he wouldn't cover with barbecue sauce and try to eat, has decided that he will fight federal intervention in his state's ghastly health-care system by taking a stand that will guarantee that the federal government takes over even more of it.
Maybe if the federal government sent him some nice flowers on his birthday."
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