A RedEye Repost: Yes, Governor Siegelman, not expanding medicare is killing people, but you already knew that

Charlene Dill didn’t have to die.

If  this headline  accompanied the photo above, what do you want to bet the media, and every republican in the state, would be calling for the former Alabama Governor's  impeachment, or worse? 

From the files of IOKIYAR (It's OK If You Are Republican)

Next time you see someone like Americans for Prosperity’s Jennifer Stefano shouting about the ridiculously generous benefits for Medicaid under Obamacare, you might want to picture Charlene Dill in your head. Charlene Dill was a 32-year-old woman who had three kids, was separated from her husband, and, with a combination of part-time jobs, was barely scraping by. She got booted off Medicaid because her princely $9000 a year was too much income — she couldn’t afford a divorce yet, so the program took her estranged husband’s income into account. And that was a problem, because Charlene Dill had a heart condition that could be managed with medication, which she couldn’t afford without Medicaid. And so on March 21, Charlene Dill died of heart failure while demonstrating a vacuum cleaner at a home in Kissimmee, Florida. She would have been covered by Medicaid if Florida had agreed to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act, but Florida’s legislature has so far blocked it, because Obamacare is bad, and handouts make people lazy.

Yes, Red States,  not expanding medicare is actually killing people, but you already knew that.

Alabama residents protested in front of the Capitol on Saturday to demand that Gov. Robert Bentley (R) expand the state’s Medicaid program. The move would provide health insurance coverage to 200,000 low-income residents who fall into a coverage gap in the Affordable Care Act.
More than 40 organizations under the umbrella group Save OurSelves: A Movement for Justice and Democracy, or SOS “presented 13,653 signatures to the Capitol doorstep in a coffin carried by six pallbearers,” the Montgomery Advertiser reports. Individuals told personal stories of waiting years to access coverage, with some eventually dying from lack of health care. A recent study conducted by Harvard researchers estimated that as many as 17,000 people will die directly as a result of their states refusing to expand Medicaid.

How many more people have to die?