This is an opinion column.

Alabama governments rolled out more than a billion dollars in subsidies and incentives for a Thyssenkrupp Steel Plant in Mobile in 2007.

All for the promise of 2,000 jobs.

A lot of people thought it was worth it. Even if the subsidies amounted to some $536,500 per job.

Progress, right? The deals are outlined by the nonprofit Good Jobs First.

In 2018 state and local governments offered $900 million in incentives to lure a Toyota-Mazda plant to Huntsville.

It was a coup, and the plant promised 4,000 jobs. What a bargain at a mere $225,000 in incentives for each worker.

Never mind that it just gave free room and board to an international giant whose revenues that year were more than twice the total tax collected by the state of Alabama.

That’s how we roll.

I can go on.

A $429 million dollar incentive deal for Bayer Cropscience was projected to bring 180 jobs. Roll Tide.

Alabama governments offered a $234.6 million package for Hyundai to bring 2,000 jobs, a plum at only $117,300 per job.

A $158 million subsidy plan for Airbus promised 1,000 jobs, at a cost of only $158,500 per job.

Honda got a $158 million incentive deal, or $105,333 for every proposed job.

Alabama never minded giving away the farm for the promise of jobs, jobs, jobs. It’s worth it, seemingly every politician says. Because jobs are everything. Until they are nothing at all.

On Friday, the home health care company Health at Home announced that it would exit Alabama permanently, leaving 785 Alabamians jobless. The company cited the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid as a key reason.

“The current reimbursement and regulatory environment for Medicaid-funded home care has made it difficult to recruit, hire and retain workforce and we have not been able to overcome these challenges in the state of Alabama,” a company spokeswoman told AL.com’s Hannah Denham.

Alabama, a state that takes from the federal government more than twice what it pays in taxes, has refused to expand Medicaid on the basis of federal animus, obstinance, politics, complete disdain for the tens of thousands of Alabamians who need Medicaid for their very survival, and the excuse that it would cost too much.

Alabama continues to complain that expanding Medicaid is too expensive, so this year it turned down more than $2 billion in federal money – with a B – rather than spend about $225 million per year to expand coverage to 300,000 Alabamians who desperately need it.

This despite pleading by UAB, the state’s largest employer, and studies that have shown expanding Medicaid would not only fuel a boom in jobs, jobs, jobs, but help save struggling hospitals in the state, which in turn would save jobs and save lives.

On Friday, the same day Help at Home confirmed its departure from Alabama, Brookwood Baptist Health said it will close labor and delivery units in both Birmingham and Shelby County, the most recent cutbacks in healthcare across the state. At least 17 Alabama hospitals, not counting those closures, have shut their doors since 2010.

In a state that ranks in the bottom five in health.

In a state where helping people is condemned as welfare. But handing subsidies and incentives and cash to corporate behemoths is an investment.

This century alone, according to Good Jobs First, Alabama entered into 13 “megadeals” with corporate titans, offering $3.6 billion in concessions. That comes out to an average of $280 million per deal.

Politicians can claim expanding Medicaid is too costly, or a political statement, or a stand on some kind of manufactured principle.

What they are really saying is that they don’t give a damn about Alabamians.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner at AL.com.