In the Deep South, access to Medicaid is a crucial lifeline because the region has one of the highest percentages of people living in poverty in the United States. Medicaid’s primary purpose is to provide government-funded health insurance to people with low incomes and people with disabilities who cannot afford or do not have access to private insurance. The current government shutdown underscores that Medicaid access for all Americans is in jeopardy, which would leave us a less healthy country.
I watched my father, Rod, sit at his kitchen table staring at a pile of opened envelopes and medical bills at 61 years old. The words on the pages spelled out his insurance co-pays, hospital stays and ambulance rides to the emergency room. The due dates kept coming, but the ability for him to pay the mounting health expenses did not. Southern and Black, a physician by training, he had to stop serving patients in early 2020 — not because of the pandemic, but because his kidneys gave out.
This administration froze more than $410 billion for VA hospitals, natural disaster relief, cancer screenings, housing, education and much more without our elected officials in Congress having a say.”
Afterward, most of my father’s days were spent at a dialysis clinic as a patient rather than seeing his own. He had to stop working, draining his bank account to continue fulfilling his financial obligations — mortgage, car note, supplemental health insurance. The list went on. Within months, he had exhausted his assets.
I began sending money home for basics like groceries and gas. He said many nights he’d fall asleep wondering about his future. His sick leave gone, he was forced to leave his job.
My dad was not alone in his fight to live. Black people are more likely to have kidney failure due to racial differences in health care access, screening during routine checkups and the lack of access to healthier foods. These inequalities create racial health disparities even when you take factors like education and income into account.
Dad passed away in 2021. I often wonder whether less financial stress would have bought him more time.
While relearning life without him, I had to tie up the loose ends like the invoice charging him for his final ambulance ride and the emergency room bills for the attempts to save his life. And since his passing, I found one thing I know to be true: Proper medical prevention, care and treatment greatly improve the odds for patients.
For many, Medicaid makes proper and consistent medical care possible.
Medicaid ensures equal access to health care. It serves as a critical source of health care coverage for many vulnerable communities, including people of color, people with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community. I believe everyone should have access to a doctor if it buys more time with our families, more holiday seasons and more Sunday dinners.
This shutdown is different because it emphasizes the dire need to ensure health care affordability and access while addressing disparities. This administration froze more than $410 billion for VA hospitals, natural disaster relief, cancer screenings, housing, education and much more without our elected officials in Congress having a say.
In the past, a government shutdown would force congressional leaders to the table to listen to our concerns. But not this time. Not yet, anyway.
Many of us will feel these funding cuts. Many people will question whether that trip to the doctor is necessary. If Congress doesn’t act, health insurance premiums could more than double, challenging access to health insurance as early as this month, on the first day of Affordable Care Act open enrollment. While many are already feeling the burden of increased costs of living, roughly 4.8 million people across the country could lose health insurance under the bill provisions, including 1.4 million immigrants who legally reside in this country. Funding to small and rural hospitals is also at risk.
One take is that this shutdown is about preventing health care costs from skyrocketing and preserving access for everyday Americans, regardless of immigration status. Congress can and should approve a budget that preserves access to health care so that people can afford to go to the doctor, make urgent care sick visits, get monthly prescription refills and receive school physicals.
States should continue to fund their health care programs fully, spending the dollars the federal government has promised for key programs through Medicaid. Communities, families and children are depending on these programs to help meet their basic needs. Cutting them off is like snatching money out of the average citizen’s already thin wallet, adding to their economic distress.
Gina Azito Thompson is a policy analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Image at top by SPLC; original photos from iStock