Opinion

Opinion: South Carolina Heads Down a Dead-end Street in Rejecting Medicaid Expansion

Published

7 years ago

July 27, 2019

South Carolina’s James Louis Petigru was a Civil War-era lawyer, judge, congressman and most notably the attorney general who opposed South Carolina’s use of nullification of federal laws and, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, opposed state secession.

He famously quipped, after learning that his state had seceded from the Union, “South Carolina is too small to be a republic and too large to be an insane asylum.”

While not insane, the state was a little nutty when it rejected Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). South Carolina has one of the highest percentages of uninsured people in the country.

The leaders of the state are leading the people down a dead-end street. They support tax cuts for the rich and health care cuts for the poor. South Carolina is a red state with blue needs — more health care, less poverty, better schools and fewer jails.

Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, a small city of approximately 3,600 people.

The Bamberg County Hospital, where Haley was born, closed on April 30, 2012 for lack of money. Not only did people lose health services but Bamberg County Hospital workers lost their jobs.

Many other small rural hospitals and workers faced the same fate in South Carolina when the state rejected the $10 billion over 10 years it would have received if it had expanded Medicaid.

A recent article in the Greenville News reported that when hospital beds fill up in the state, patients are boarded in emergency rooms. It is inhumane and economically foolish and morally wrong to argue against expanding Medicaid when 50,000 jobs and greater health care is involved.

Arguing against keeping rural hospitals open, like Bamberg County, makes no sense. It’s arguing for sickness and unnecessary death.

It’s a national problem, but recently South Carolina’s Greenville News documented the situation locally when 80-year-old Ron Miller of Pickens County collapsed at home two days after surgery and had to be rushed back to the hospital and readmitted. The problem was there were no available beds at that hospital or any of the hospitals in Greenville.

The paper reported, “The phenomenon, called boarding, occurs when hospitals hold patients in the ER until they find a bed for them on a medical floor.” Dr. Ryan Stanton, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, an ER physician with Central Emergency Physicians in Lexington, Kentucky, has indicated it’s a growing problem across the nation. It’s a simple problem of supply and demand.

There are more patients than there are beds. A further concern is whether patients forced to stay in the ER for long periods of time have the same equipment made available to them and receive the same level of care that those in hospital beds receive.

Expanding Medicaid could help, but South Carolina is a state that pretends to resent big government and federal dollars, even though 32 percent of its general revenue comes from Washington for education, health care, airports, highways, seaports, the big military presence in the state and more. South Carolina couldn’t exist without federal dollars. It, apparently, just doesn’t want to receive Medicaid funds for its neediest citizens.

There is a better South Carolina on the horizon and Congressman Joe Cunningham (SC-01) is an example. He’s the new Democrat from the Lowcountry and he’s worked to reinstate the ban on offshore drilling, protect Lowcountry jobs from damaging tariffs and fix South Carolina’s ailing infrastructure. On Jan. 3, 2019, he said he was “ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work” and he has. South Carolina needs more Joe Cunninghams.

We all do.

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Posts by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of February 11 = 17, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 11 – 17, 2026

Published

2 days ago

February 16, 2026

Oakland Post

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Oakland Post

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#NNPA BlackPress

COMMENTARY: The National Protest Must Be Accompanied with Our Votes

Just as Trump is gathering election data like having the FBI take all the election data in Georgia from the 2020 election, so must we organize in preparation for the coming primary season to have the right people on ballots in each Republican district, so that we can regain control of the House of Representatives and by doing so, restore the separation of powers and balance that our democracy is being deprived of.

Published

1 week ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper. File photo..

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

As thousands of Americans march every week in cities across this great nation, it must be remembered that the protest without the vote is of no concern to Donald Trump and his administration.

In every city, there is a personal connection to the U.S. Congress. In too many cases, the member of Congress representing the people of that city and the congressional district in which it sits, is a Republican. It is the Republicans who are giving silent support to the destructive actions of those persons like the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Director, who are carrying out the revenge campaign of the President rather than upholding the oath of office each of them took “to Defend The Constitution of the United States.”

In California, the primary comes in June 2026. The congressional races must be a priority just as much as the local election of people has been so important in keeping ICE from acquiring facilities to build more prisons around the country.

“We the People” are winning this battle, even though it might not look like it. Each of us must get involved now, right where we are.

In this Black History month, it is important to remember that all we have accomplished in this nation has been “in spite of” and not “because of.” Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Today, the struggle is to maintain our very institutions and history. Our strength in this struggle rests in our “collectiveness.” Our newspapers and journalists are at the greatest risk. We must not personally add to the attack by ignoring those who have been our very foundation, our Black press.

Are you spending your dollars this Black History Month with those who salute and honor contributions by supporting those who tell our stories? Remember that silence is the same as consent and support for the opposition. Where do you stand and where will your dollars go?

Oakland Post

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Activism

Post Newspaper Invites NNPA to Join Nationwide Probate Reform Initiative

The Post’s Probate Reform Group meets the first Thursday of every month via Zoom and invites the public to attend. The Post is making the initiative national and will submit information from its monthly meeting to the NNPA to educate, advocate, and inform its readers.

Published

1 week ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Tanya Dennis

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) represents the Black press with over 200 newspapers nationwide.

Last night the Post announced that it is actively recruiting the Black press to inform the public that there is a probate “five-alarm fire” occurring in Black communities and invited every Black newspaper starting from the Birmingham Times in Alabama to the Milwaukee Times Weekly in Wisconsin, to join the Post in our “Year of Action” for probate reform.

Reporter Tanya Dennis says, “The adage that ‘When America catches a cold, Black folks catch the flu” is too true in practice; that’s why we’re engaging the Black Press to not only warn, but educate the Black community regarding the criminal actions we see in probate court: Thousands are losing generational wealth to strangers. It’s a travesty that happens daily.”

Venus Gist, a co-host of the reform group, states, “ Unfortunately, people are their own worst enemy when it comes to speaking with loved ones regarding their demise. It’s an uncomfortable subject that most avoid, but they do so at their peril. The courts rely on dissention between family members, so I encourage not only a will and trust [be created] but also videotape the reading of your documents so you can show you’re of sound mind.”

In better times, drafting a will was enough; then a trust was an added requirement to ‘iron-clad’ documents and to assure easy transference of wealth.

No longer.

As the courts became underfunded in the last 20 years, predatory behavior emerged to the extent that criminality is now occurring at alarming rates with no oversight, with courts isolating the conserved, and, I’ve heard, many times killing conservatees for profit. Plundering the assets of estates until beneficiaries are penniless is also common.”

Post Newspaper Publisher Paul Cobb says, “The simple solution is to avoid probate at all costs. If beneficiaries can’t agree, hire a private mediator and attorney to work things out. The moment you walk into court, you are vulnerable to the whims of the court. Your will and trust mean nothing.”

Zakiya Jendayi, a co-host of the Probate Reform Group and a victim herself, says, “In my case, the will and trust were clear that I am the beneficiary of the estate, but the opposing attorney said I used undue influence to make myself beneficiary. He said that without proof, and the judge upheld the attorney’s baseless assertion. In court, the will and trust is easily discounted.”

The Black press reaches out to 47 million Black Americans with one voice. The power of the press has never been so important as it is now in this national movement to save Black generational wealth from predatory attorneys, guardians and judges.

The next probate reform meeting is on March 5, from 7 – 9 p.m. PST. Zoom Details:
Meeting ID: 825 0367 1750
Passcode: 475480

All are welcome.