Teenaged and pregnant in Texas after SB8

In yesterday's N.Y. Times, columnist Michelle Goldberg has a powerful up-ed describing the situation created by SB 8 -- Texas's so-called "heartbeat bill" -- for pregnant minors in Texas who seek an abortion. The situation is beyond grim. 

On top of totally unconstitutional legal and practical barriers that all Texas women face (until a federal judge enters a TRO, hopefully soon): imagine being 16, finding out you're pregnant, and then (unless your parents are on-board) needing to deal with the mechanics of a judicial-bypass process while the clock is ticking, all before detection of a so-called fetal (not really a fetus) heartbeat (not really a heartbeat, more like electrical signals from the precursor to the heart). Hard to imagine. But let's face it, moral imagination is not a strong suit for the GOP legislators (and AG and Governor) who dreamed up this scheme.

Unvaccinated patients added $5.7 billion to June-August healthcare expenditures

It's not surprising, but it is still staggering. As reported by Health Affairs: "A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations among people who have not been vaccinated in August is adding billions of dollars in preventable costs to the nation’s health-care system. The analysis estimates that the preventable costs of treating unvaccinated patients in the hospitals now stand at an estimated $5.7 billion." The full Peterson-KFF report is here.

The latest surge: It's real and it was avoidable

Paul Krugman's N.Y. Times newsletter today (not posted yet, but it should be soon) has two altogether unsurprising but very revealing graphs that neatly summarize where we are with the latest surge in COVID-related deaths:

The delta variant is everywhere, but not every country is experiencing the surge that we are. Something other than infectivity is at work here. As Krugman points out, "the systematic refusal to get vaccinated, refusal to wear masks, etc., is very clearly tied to the unique way that common-sense public health measures have been caught up in the culture war. . . . According to a recent NBC poll, 91 percent of Biden voters have been vaccinated but only 50 percent of Trump voters. Or look at death tolls: Blue states look more like Canada or Germany than like Florida or Texas".

Can anyone seriously doubt that the non-policies of Govs. DeSantis and Abbott are unnecessarily killing people in their states?