General Discussion

Not too long ago, the far-right dominated NC General Assembly finally decided to expand Medicaid under the ACA. The reason they decided to give those “slacker, unemployed people” insurance is not out of any compassion for the state’s less fortunate residents. No, it was simply the almighty dollar. See, the state has been losing rural hospitals and even the major (academic) medical centers have been losing money because they have to absorb the costs of uncompensated care. It doesn’t look too good when your constituents have to go through multiple counties in order to get to a hospital, because their own hospital closed due to money loss. A closure that could have been prevented by expanding Medicaid years earlier. And that’s exactly what happened earlier this year: We lost a rural hospital not too far away (due to $ losses, and inability to find a partner hospital for funding). A county with 20,000 people, now have no emergency care, or other major medical facilities within 45 minutes. That’s too far for many stroke or heart attack patients to have a reasonable chance to save some/most/all brain/cardiac function.

So, to read that MAGAt Mike Johnson is even considering monkeying with the ACA, just blows my mind (although, it really shouldn’t). And what makes this even worse, is most of Louisiana is rural, and had to be suffering the same hospital closures, and there’s no way MAGAt Mike is unaware. Unless he’s been living under a mountain of rocks.

If this doesn’t just scream that he and the rest of the nutters are giving the public the middle finger, while saying “Eff YOU!” to the public, I don’t know what does. Unconscionable.

For the record, I am affected by all this as I am a cardiac catheterization lab nurse, and I work in one of the state’s academic medical centers.