One of the Other Alabama Health Crises

We're all preoccupied by CORVID19, understandably, but there are as always other health issues for many Alabamians.

The New Yorker this morning includes an article headlined this way:

A Preventable Cancer Is on the Rise in Alabama

The state’s refusal to expand Medicaid is causing poor women to miss out on lifesaving screenings.

     That won't be news to many Alabama residents, who remember the past two Republican Governors' refusal to expand Medicaid...Robert Bentley (a physician!)...and Kay Ivey (a prominent lung cancer and falling-down patient!) didn't have to worry when they fell sick. They were covered by the State employees health insurance. And both of them had ample resources outside of that insurance anyway.

But for poor Alabamians (Alabama is ranked as the 45th poorest U.S. State) Medicaid is a true safety net. As the article about cervical cancer points out:

"Women who develop cervical cancer in Alabama are more likely to die than their counterparts in any other state—and in recent years Alabama’s mortality rate has been rising.

     In 2018, Human Rights Watch published a report identifying some of the reasons for Alabama’s outlier status. Sex education is not mandated in the public schools, which may help to explain why the state ranks low in H.P.V.-vaccination rates. In small towns and rural areas, the number of doctors and medical facilities has fallen, contributing to the proliferation of a disease that disproportionately affects poor women and women of color. The Human Rights Watch report found that Alabama women without medical insurance routinely delayed getting care, “which, for some, meant that gynecological cancers weren’t found until symptoms developed to more advanced stages."

     I don't know if expanding Medicaid in Alabama now is even possible...that train may have left the station. 
     Especially now that the Government has agreed to spend $2-Trillion to save all of us from the other health emergency.
     But how many people have died since the doctor and the patient became Governors, and declined the treatment Alabama needed to save her citizens' lives?