Refuseniks

By Baxter

Like the rest of the world, we cats now know that John Edwards is a jerk. But we're beginning to think he was right: There are two Americas.

Yet not in quite the same way John meant.

There's an America in which Governors care whether their citizens have access to fundamental, affordable healthcare services, and who eagerly receive federal aid to help them ensure it. Because since the 1960s, a program called Medicaid has been the law of the land.

And in that same America, Governors accept decisions by the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of the law. Like, say, the SCOTUS decision handed down on Thursday, June 28.

But today, thanks to the current extreme state of the Republican Party, there's another America.

It's an America in which certain states — like, oh, Texas — score horribly in healthcare, whether we're talking about the highest rate of uninsured citizens, or the availability of home-health services, or just helping patients generally cope with specific illnesses like breast cancer, respiratory problems and chronic pain.

Yet in this other America, certain states — like, gosh, Texas — have Republican Governors who are refusing to accept the Medicaid expansion provided by the Affordable Healthcare Act, or to set up the state healthcare insurance exchanges that the act mandates. Or both.

Of course, this probably simply means that the federal government will set up the exchanges for them. (Talk about a "power grab"!) But as far as the Medicaid money goes, poor Texans, many of them women, might just be out of luck.

Is this political posturing? Absolutely. These silly Republicans are motivated by nothing more than an intense dislike of President Obama and a personal pique that, overall, the Supreme Court's decision on healthcare reform didn't go their way. Their intransigence on this issue is pathetic — but at the same time, shocking and cruel.

Which means that we cats are glad that we live in the America in which access to affordable healthcare isn't in the hands of fools like Rick Perry, Nikki Haley, Rick Scott and Bobby Jindal.

Who, by the way, are making John Edwards look like a statesman.

(IMAGE: An Ohio woman whose sister died of cancer thanks President Obama for the passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act.)