I served on the Citizens and Legislators Working Group on Medicaid Eligibility and Reform, which was appointed by the Missouri House of Representatives to gather information on the state’s Medicaid system.
The Kansas City Star has just published an op-ed I wrote based on what I heard at our hearings. Our nation faces stark choices about what values we want to uphold.
We held hearings last summer across the state, where anyone wishing to share experiences and opinions was welcome to testify. We heard from doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, clergy, people with disabilities, farmers, lawyers, laborers, Medicaid recipients, poor people who don’t qualify for Medicaid and many more.
We heard from a hardworking, uninsured farmer from southern Missouri who left home before dawn to drive for hours to our hearing in Columbia. He has heart problems, diabetes and a low income. He and his wife can’t afford the $3,000-plus monthly premiums that private insurance would cost them this year, and they don’t currently qualify for Medicaid. He implored the legislators to accept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion because he wants to stay healthy enough to keep working the land.
We also heard from several remarkable people with severe disabilities — some paralyzed, some blind — for whom Medicaid has spelled the difference between catastrophe and a productive life. There’s one woman I will never forget. Using a wheelchair and paralyzed from the neck down, her mind is clear as a bell but her words emerge only with great effort. Despite facing almost unimaginable obstacles, she has become a community leader who devotes her life to helping others. Without Medicaid, she might not even be alive.
Read more here:
http://www.kansascity.com/...