Ignorance is costly.
Look no further than the state of Alabama, a state with an ultra-conservative legislature that has, over the past few legislative sessions, passed bills designed to denigrate, discriminate, and impose its alleged Christian religious beliefs on everyone else. (I say “allegedly” because while those who promote the belief profess Christianity, their actions, and callous disregard for others, suggest they are completely ignorant of the basic teachings of that religion.)
The ignorance of decency, basic freedoms and the law is astonishing to witness, and the results are… predictable.
For years, we have resisted every call to expand Medicaid in our state, leaving nearly 300,000 Alabamians in a hellish state of uninsurance and forced to rely on emergency care for basic illnesses and prenatal and maternal care — the most expensive treatment in human history. In addition to worsening health outcomes, this refusal has led to the closure of dozens of rural hospitals across Alabama, further limiting access to health care.
The Alabama Policy Institute, an organization that, despite its tax-exempt status requiring it to remain nonpartisan, has never advocated for anything other than far-right nasty stuff and gets most of its income from national Christian organizations, has been a leading voice against expansion because, according to its director, providing basic care to the poor would stop them working — because, you know, Jesus was famous for only healing people who were paid to work.
But in Christianity today, such fear of God seems to be rewarded, but at a great cost to the rest of us.
Alabama consistently ranks among the worst states for maternal and prenatal care, with an infant mortality rate high enough to make any third world country blush. Just Tuesday, I was sent another study from Value Penguin that looked at a variety of factors to score states on access to prenatal and maternal care.
Guess which states were DFL?
Specifically, the study found that Alabama ranked more than 40 percent below the national average for care providers.
Apparently — and stop me if you’ve heard this before — doctors aren’t packing up their stethoscopes and coming here to practice medicine. They like to get paid for their work, and uninsured patients, especially those of whom there are hundreds of thousands, don’t pay the rent.
And things will get worse. Much, much worse.
Following the Dobbs decision (the U.S. Supreme Court decision in which some right-wing justices found Roe v. Wade to be unsettling law), the National Association of Women’s Healthcare Professionals began monitoring applications for obstetrician-gynecologist licenses in states with strict abortion laws.
Alabama has one such law — one of the worst, in fact — that bans abortion and makes no exceptions for rape or incest.
Last year, the number of applications for obstetrician-gynecologist licenses in Alabama fell a staggering 21 percent, according to the NAWHP.
While new physician applications were declining nationwide, Alabama’s rate of decline was more than twice the national average.
They are not the only ones leaving.
Another study by Hire A Helper tracked the trends of highly educated people across the U.S. Specifically, we wanted to know where people moved to and from when opportunities opened up after earning an advanced degree.
Not Alabama.
In fact, 45 percent more highly educated people left the state than moved in. The loss of smart people was so great that Alabama ranked 10th worst.
That’s doctors, lawyers, engineers, and just about anyone who has the opportunity to choose where they live.
Of course, there are other factors at play here, such as job opportunities and the wages that come with them. Alabama also ranks last on this list. We’re 49th in per capita income, but that’s likely due to right-wing lawmakers fighting unions and selling Alabama’s labor force off as cheap labor.
This is a perpetuating cycle of poverty and suffering that we cannot seem to break as long as the majority of voters continue to elect the people who put us in this position.
That is ignorance, and it is very costly.
