Medicaid cuts prove burden for many
Survey: 23% of those dropped still uninsured
Last December, midway through a three-month treatment for hepatitis C, she was dropped from Alabama’s Medicaid program. Without insurance, she knew she could not afford to pay thousands of dollars for the medication.
“I was freaking out, actually,” Wildman said. “I couldn’t afford to pay full price out of pocket. So I was like, ‘What do I do?’ ”
Before she was pregnant with her first child, Wildman had insurance through her job at a local hospital. Before that, she tried to purchase coverage through the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, but the plans cost too much.
She tried again when she lost Medicaid last November and bought a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan through the ACA marketplace for $65 per month. The KFF survey found 8% of people like Wildman, who were removed from Medicaid, secured a new plan through the ACA, thanks in part to more generous pandemic-era subsidies that make the monthly premiums more affordable.
The insurance plan paid for her hepatitis C treatment, and she is now cured of the viral disease.
She also has a wider selection of doctors compared with her choices under Medicaid. “It isn’t so unaffordable that I can’t manage it,” she said.
Consumer advocates say many people have lost Medicaid coverage due to paperwork glitches and other administrative mistakes.
Advocates say consumers have encountered long wait times when calling for help from state Medicaid programs. Other patients, including some people with disabilities, have had trouble getting in-person help, said Alicia Emanuel, a senior attorney with the National Health Law Program in Los Angeles.
People on Medicaid always faced these challenges, but the pandemic backlog of renewals magnified the issues, Emanuel said.
“These issues are illustrative of cracks in the Medicaid system,” Emanuel said. “These are issues that advocates have been sounding the alarm (about) for years. It’s just reached an inflection point because of the unwinding.”