The Party of Rural America: Life Expectancy in West Virginia is way too high
By 
Krugman observes that the Republican war on Medicaid will be particularly devastating to the rural states that overwhelmingly support Trump:
West Virginia is a very red state; Donald Trump received more than two thirds of its votes last year.
It’s also a poor state, left behind by the 21st century economy. Because incomes are low, it pays very little in federal income taxes — less per household than any other state.
However, at least the great majority of West Virginians — more than 94 percent — have health insurance. The reason for this good news is that unlike many red states, WV accepted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, which was passed in 2010 but didn’t fully go into effect until 2014. The effect was dramatic; Medicaid now covers more than a quarter of the state’s population…
And Medicaid covers 45 percent of the state’s children.
Hmm, you know, I’m not sure the post-Dobbs turn to maternal care is going to happen.
But now the Republicans West Virginia helped put in power are preparing to impose savage cuts on a program that has literally been a lifeline for many in the state, in order to help offset the cost of huge tax cuts for high-income Americans, hardly any of which will trickle down to WV voters. Populism!
We’ll be hearing a lot of lies about Medicaid in the weeks ahead, starting with Trump’s arithmetically impossible claim last week that Medicaid won’t be “touched” by the planned spending cuts. So here are two things you should know about a program Trump and his allies have in their crosshairs: it’s extremely important to many Americans, and it’s much more cost-efficient than the rest of our health care system.
That West Virginia and states like it will continue to support Republicans even if these savage cuts go through will make quadruple-bank-shot arguments about how rural Republican support is ACTUALLY about material interests even harder to sustain, not that people won’t continue to try.