Mississippi Governor and potential 2010 Presidential candidate Haley Barbour is part of the chorus sniping against our newest federal health care laws.
The governor recently published on his Twitter stream:
"In the year since Obama overhauled our health system, governors have been addressing its shortcomings while working towards real reform."
It's (lamentably) funny for Barbour to say something like this, though, since he's neglected to remove the splinter from his own eye.
In Mississippi, state HIV/AIDS policies are in need of real, drastic reform. HIV-positive people in the state face tremendous stigma, harassment, and discrimination (even from doctors and other medical professionals), and an inadequate support and treatment system that is increasing suffering and promoting preventable deaths.
In a report published last month, Human Rights Watch described the full scale of the problem via some horrible first-hand accounts and statistics:
An HIV case manager at the Crossroads Clinic in Greenville, Mississippi, stated that she had a client in need of gynecological services:
"I called 20 gynecologists and all of them said flat-out no when I told them she was HIV-positive. I have also been turned down by podiatrists. A lot of stigma is coming from doctors themselves."
And this:
"Racial and ethnic disparities in HIV/AIDS are dramatic in the state. Blacks comprise 37.5 percent of the population, but 72 percent of Mississippians living with HIV/AIDS are African- Americans. Of newly diagnosed HIV infections, 76 percent are in African-Americans. The death rate from HIV among African-Americans is 10 times that of whites. Among the Hispanic population, Hispanic males are infected at a rate four times that of whites, and Hispanic females are infected at a rate eight times that of whites."
If Haley Barbour is really going to continue asserting his expertise and practical compassion when it comes to health care reform, he should definitely be asked about the preventable HIV/AIDS catastrophe in Mississippi. If he does run for the Presidency, I just hope some moderator or town hall participant asks him during a presidential debate: How can you criticize what you call "Obamacare" when you have completely left your own people in the dust?
(Originally published on Amplify)