This map (explained here) shows the number of people who fall into the "Medicaid Gap" because their state governments won't expand Medicaid. Despite being offered 100-90% of the cost being covered by federal subsidies, these states won't help insure their citizens.
Why? I'll let the author of the map offer an explanation:
Why have southern states have taken such a hard line that punishes so many people? I suspect the best explanation is complicated. Political party, the region’s historic legacy of racial inequality, the limited political influence of poor people–not least the word Obama in ObamaCare–all surely play a role. Whatever the explanation, millions of the nation’s poorest people are locked out of basic health coverage.
I think that pretty much covers it. Or to wrap it up: the South has a profoundly different political culture than the rest of the country, and it has since 1680, when Bacon's Rebellion prompted the planter elite to foster an alliance with poorer farmers based on the idea of racial solidarity.
The degree to which we can drag the South into the 19th century (forget the 20th) the better the country will be.
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