Medicaid gives people access to essential health care and supports when they need it most, but enormous Republican-proposed cuts would jeopardize the health of over 70 million people, including children, pregnant people, older adults, people with disabilities and people with low incomes. Throughout the spring, the National Partnership for Women & Families will be highlighting the importance of Medicaid in the lives of our staff and their loved ones, proudly proclaiming Medicaid Matters. Below, we highlight our colleague Lorena’s story.
Public health advocacy chose me at an early age. Growing up, I served as a translator for family, friends, and community members struggling to navigate the U.S. medical system. Through these experiences I learned the difficulties of accessing care for low-income and non-English speaking communities, and how this affected their health and well-being. My passion for public health began here—seeing people like my parents depend on mobile clinics for medical care, helping neighbors understand complex medical bills, and being enrolled in Medicaid myself.
From childhood to early adulthood I received my health insurance through Passport Health Plan, a Kentucky Medicaid insurance provider. Passport provided me with no-cost health coverage, which eliminated health costs that would have been detrimental to my immigrant family’s financial stability. My parents and I immigrated to the States from Cuba when I was 7 years old. During the first year, my whole family qualified for Medicaid. We were fortunate to fall under the qualified immigration status requirements, which exempted us from the five-year waiting period that unjustly prohibits many non-citizens with low incomes from accessing Medicaid and other public benefits. My family and I were living under the federal poverty line, and relying on government subsidies and temporary manufacturing jobs to make ends meet. Our low-income allowed us to receive care at no cost.
Yet, a year after resettling, once both of my parents secured full-time employment, I was the only one left who qualified for health coverage through Medicaid. At the time our household income exceeded the annual income cut-off – by less than $5,000. But, their manufacturing jobs offered no health insurance and their minimum wage salaries weren’t enough to afford coverage through the ACA Marketplace. After losing access to Medicaid they remained uninsured for years, and depended on mobile and community health clinics to access health care. While my parents struggled to access health care, they were grateful I never lost access to Medicaid – and often feared that even a slight increase in their income would jeopardize my health coverage.
Thanks to Medicaid, I was able to access oral and reproductive care when I needed it most. At 12, my dentist noticed that my left canine tooth was impacted and wouldn’t come down from my gums. I was referred to an orthodontist for braces, a treatment that would have cost over $5,000 without Medicaid – a price tag we couldn’t afford out of pocket. After a year and a half of wearing braces, my teeth were straightened and my overbite corrected; however, my adult, canine tooth still wasn’t coming down. It now posed a risk to my nasal cavity – requiring surgery. Medicaid covered both my braces and the surgery, and to this day I remain a loyal patient of Gentle Excellence Dental, one of the few dental clinics in Louisville that accepts Medicaid. Gentle Excellence Dental is an essential dental clinic for much of the city’s immigrant community, and given its commitment to continuing to accept Medicaid, it is a sought-after and appointment constrained dental practice.
But Medicaid was not only essential for my dental health, years later, at age 20, I decided to go on hormonal birth control to manage my severe period pains. Living in a small rural town in Kentucky for college, meant obtaining an appointment with a local OBGYN would take months. Instead, I chose to visit a Planned Parenthood over an hour away, which I knew had same-day appointments, accepted Medicaid, and was an inclusive and safe place for the LGBTQIA+ community, young adults and individuals seeking abortion. Medicaid allowed me to see my provider of choice and fully covered my birth control pills. Without Medicaid, accessing the care I needed would have been far too difficult – and a financial burden my family could not afford. Today, I advocate to ensure others like myself continue to have access to this life-saving health coverage.
Medicaid is the largest provider of health coverage for children in the United States – covering approximately 40 percent of children nationwide. By providing comprehensive health coverage, including preventive services, dental care, vaccinations, and other critical services, Medicaid ensures that we can keep our nation’s children healthy. Cuts to Medicaid would make it so that children like 12-year old Lorena would be unable to access critical care from their first tooth to their choice of contraceptives. We must protect access to Medicaid for immigrants and over 30 million children nationwide.
Read more from the Medicaid Matters series:
