Life and Death in a Red State
Or if you prefer, No War But the Class War.
Today I found this article, about a free clinic in a major exurb of Houston:
http://www.texasobserver.org/a-galveston-med-student-describes-life-and-death-in-the-safety-net/
To give you a little background about Galveston, Houston, and environs: Galveston was the state's major shipping port and something like New Orleans West until 1900, when a hurricane flattened the city and killed something like 6,000 people. As an aside for the history buffs who might like to read up on the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, I recommend Isaac's Storm by Eric Larsen. Anyway, if that hadn't happened, Houston would be a satellite community of Galveston, not the other way around. That storm shifted all shipping by rail and sea to Houston- and Galveston never caught up again. Between the two are Texas City, League City, Deer Park, La Porte, La Marque, Webster, and others. All of these cities are at least half oil refineries- that huge white blob you see in Google Earth is a massive cluster of oil refineries at Texas City. The fun thing about Galveston and Houston ism in the winter prevailing winds blow refinery pollutants right into Galveston, and in the summer prevailing winds blow pollutants right into Houston proper. The result, as you can imagine and as the article suggests, is one of the highest rates of certain kinds of cancer, lung disease, emphysema, and asthma in the nation.
To quote the article:
"UTMB ascribes these changes to financial strain from Hurricane Ike, the county’s inability to negotiate a suitable indigent-care contract and loss of state funding. The state blames budget shortfalls. The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, could have been a huge relief. However, Gov. Rick Perry rejected billions of dollars in federal funding to expand Medicaid, funding that should have brought access to more than a million Texans, including many St. Vincent’s patients.
Perry’s refusal is catastrophic health policy. For patients, it means that seeking medical care will still require risking bankruptcy, and may lead nowhere."
And that sums it up. Tell me again how the class war isn't real?