Governor Snyder, the Republican governor of the state of Michigan, implemented a law expanding the use of telemedicine saying, “telemedicine offers an incredible opportunity to easily provide healthcare to Michigan’s elderly, disabled, and rural communities” (Snyder). This law dictates that insurance companies have to pay for treatment you get via contact with a doctor online.
Snyder, however, implemented a law that banned the use of telemedicine to prescribe abortion medication. In fact, Snyder implemented a law that would ban insurance coverage of abortions unless it is a life threatening situation. In addition, Snyder and the Republican legislature of Michigan passed and implement laws stripping union rights and more. One reason that the legislature can pass such laws and get them implemented is that republicans control both houses of the legislature in Michigan as well as the governorship. This is the result of the redistricting that took place in 2010. Every ten years, elected officials draw new lines for the voter districts. The republicans drew the lines in 2010 giving republicans a distinct advantage in elections by confining democratic voters to democratic districts. In fact, in the 2012 election for president, 54.3% of voters voted for democrat Barak Obama and 44.8% voted for republican Mitt Romney in that state. 2,387,756 voters voted democrat for the state legislature and 2,040,126 voted republican. However only 51 democrats went to the state legislature and 59 republicans went.
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"Rachel Maddow on Republican Gerrymandering and Disproportionate Representation".
In the U.S. House of Representatives’ vote, 2,327,985 voters voted democrat compared to 2,086,804 who voted Republican. Still, only 5 democrats went to Congress along with 9 republicans from the state of Michigan. In the state of Wisconsin which voted for Obama, 1,443,190 voted democrat as compared to 1,399,871 who voted republican for the U.S. House Of Representatives; however, the state is sending 3 democrats and 5 republicans. In Virginia, which also voted for Obama, 1,806,025 people voted democrat and 1,876,761 voted republican; even though republicans only won by a slight margin 3 democrats and 8 republicans were sent to Congress. In Pennsylvania, 2,794,078 voted democrat and 2,710,070 voted republican, however 5 democrats and 13 republicans were sent to Congress. In Ohio, 2,307,973 voted democrat and 2,549,546 voted republican. From this state 4 democrats and 12 republicans went to Congress. The last two states also voted for Obama.
I believe that gerrymandering should be abolished. The elected officials should not get to redistrict the state so that they can control the legislature and push bills through that the majority of people living in the state may not support. The video states that republicans want to change the way the president is picked as well. This should not be allowed to happen. I believe that one of the reason republicans are more likely to engage in gerrymandering is that they are the party affiliated with those in the upper 10% tax brackets and big corporation where there supporters may take less offense to rigging the system to go their way.
