Sidebar: How scarey is Perry-Care?

Previously I put together this chart comparing the ten healthiest with the ten unhealthiest states, which I think will be not only expanded upon, but referenced many more times, because it clearly shows there's a strong correlation between good health and having healthcare: 

Texas has one of the highest rates of obesity, giving new meaning to everything being bigger in Texas.

Now that it’s been found that Texas is one of the fattest, most diabetic and unhealthiest states in the union (see above), as well as having the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance, PolitiFact found Texas Governor Rick Perry might not even know this (or is denying it) in this Pants on Fire ruling from January:

It's no secret that Texas Gov. Rick Perry thinks states can do some things better than the federal government, including coordinating health care for its poorest residents.

In a Dec. 19 interview with Kathleen McKinley, whose blog appears on the Houston Chronicle's website, Perry said the state has good ideas for delivering care effectively. As an example, he pointed to a proposal that Texas submitted to the federal government with the goal of reducing the number of uninsured residents by "restructuring federal Medicaid funding." Medicaid uses federal and state funding to provide health insurance to low-income Americans.

…We confirmed that Texas had sought permission from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in April 2008 to redirect Medicaid hospital funds into a state pool intended to help some low-income Texans get private insurance. However, in August 2008, during George W. Bush's presidency, an official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is part of the federal health agency, sent a letter to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission stating that "a number of areas under this proposal have been identified as problematic" — making it impossible for the federal agency to approve the proposal as written.”

Maybe it should be called “Perry-Care”? Yep, states like Texas sure can do some things better, and economist Paul Krugman is here to explain (and PolitiFact to verify):

These are tough times for state governments. Huge deficits loom almost everywhere, from California to New York, from New Jersey to Texas.

Wait — Texas? Wasn’t Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn’t its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that “we have billions in surplus”? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.

And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting — the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending — has been implemented most completely. If the theory can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere.

How bad is the Texas deficit? Comparing budget crises among states is tricky, for technical reasons. Still, data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest that the Texas budget gap is worse than New York’s, about as bad as California’s, but not quite up to New Jersey levels.

And indeed, Texas did cut the budget without raising taxes….and where did it cut $31 billion? Mostly in education, of course, and “health and human services.” So, in the words of Texan liberal columnist Molly Ivins “I love Texas, but it is a nasty old rawhide mother in the way it bears down on the people who have the fewest defenses.." I guess if everything’s bigger in Texas, they can also be the biggest at (staying at) the bottom.  I bet Weston Hicks would be sooooo proud of that.