Medicaid help can lead to independence

I recently attended an event at Pilgrim’s and had the opportunity to sign the petition to put the Idaho Medicaid expansion on this November’s state ballot. While I was chatting there, surrounded for the time being by like-minded people, it occurred to me that I was a Medicaid success story waiting to be told, and that perhaps now, with the elections on the horizon, is a good time to share my experience.

Access to healthcare has always been something that has been on my radar, as my health has been my greatest challenge for most of my adult life. But government healthcare was something altogether different, and not something I worried about personally, as I thought it was something I would never need. I was never unemployed for so much as a day between the ages of 16 and 28, and I had always had access to health insurance through my job.

As my health challenges and costs increased: knee-surgery at 21, stomach surgery at 26, and a lupus diagnosis at 27, I knew, even when I struggled to pay my medical costs, that I had my health insurance to fall back on. When I was prescribed expensive, specialty medications, I didn’t worry too much about the rising costs, because I had a steady, reliable copay for prescriptions.

When I discovered I was pregnant at 28, things started to go off the rails. My pregnancy triggered a lupus flare, and not far behind came pre-eclampsia, at 24 weeks gestation. I found myself on hospital bed rest with three and half months of pregnancy left to go.

Because I had access to great medical care, I was able to carry my pregnancy to nearly 33 weeks, and my daughter was born only seven weeks premature instead of 15. My little miracle spent 36 days in the NICU; she weighed less than 4 pounds, suffered a bleed in her brain, and had to have a blood transfusion before her two-week birthday.

A week before I was cleared to bring her home, and three weeks before her due date, I lost my job. Since I had to go on bed rest so early in my pregnancy, my 12-week FMLA leave expired while my child was still fighting in the hospital, and while I was still recovering from a difficult and traumatic pregnancy. Unable and unwilling to go back, I voluntarily terminated my employment.

By the time we got home, the two of us combined had created a $430,000 hospital bill. My insurance covered all but the last week, and I purchased a COBRA plan for both of us, at a cost of over $800 a month. We didn’t pay that $430,000, but we could have been forced to if we hadn’t had prior insurance.

I got my daughter on Medicaid almost immediately. They kindly paid for her apnea monitor (my little one kept forgetting to breathe), and special formula to help her get up to her fighting weight. Without it, her medical costs would have been insurmountable.

Meanwhile, my health did not rebound as expected. My physical health continued to deteriorate, as did my emotional state. I’d struggled with PTSD, the result of an adolescent rape, for over a decade, but bringing home a vulnerable baby girl sent me into a downward spiral. Already paying over $400 a month for insurance, and all the copays for my medical costs, I found myself paying even more for psychiatric intervention. We kept our family afloat with a combination of my boyfriend’s full-time salary, food stamps, and ill-advised student and private loans.

For a year I tried to go back to work, applying every few weeks for jobs, even occasionally landing an interview before canceling in a panic. I was too sick, physically and emotionally, to work.

When my COBRA expired, I found out I was eligible for Medicaid, and about a year after that, qualified for Social Security disability. The combination of those two things, I fully believe, saved my life. No longer having to struggle to make ends meet, and no longer having to sacrifice needed medical care due to cost, I was able to get the help I needed. Not working let me focus on my health, and Medicaid (and later, Medicare) enabled me to pay for it.

My daughter is 5 years old now, and last August, I went back to work. I’ve also gone back to school and am a mere three credits short of my Associates Degree. Using Social Security’s Ticket to Work program, and Idaho’s Medicaid for Workers with Disabilities, I am in the middle of my transition back to independence.

There’s a narrative I see a lot in the media, that government aid and entitlement programs lead to dependence, and discourage people from being responsible for themselves. That is not my experience. Medicaid, combined with other elements of the government safety net, are what got me back on my feet. Without healthcare, I couldn’t work, and I couldn’t get well. With it, I can.

Idaho law already provided me with the help I needed, but there are other people like me going without care. Not everyone’s chronic illnesses or mental health battles pass the threshold of disability, nor does everyone have a qualifying child, and for too many of them, Medicaid is out of reach. Closing the Medicaid gap, and giving Idaho’s most vulnerable residents access to healthcare can save lives and livelihoods.

There are a lot of reasons to expand Medicaid, you can make arguments about it being sound economics and common-sense reform. Those arguments are powerful and valid. But it’s also the compassionate, moral thing to do. There are families like mine, all over this state, struggling because of health conditions they can’t control, and economic realities they did not choose. There are families who are one accident, one illness, or one difficult pregnancy away from the place my family was in five years ago.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to visit www.reclaimidaho.org, and sign the petition to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot. You can be a voice for other families like mine, and help to ensure that everyone has access to the services they need to thrive.

•••

Diana Braskich is a Coeur d’Alene resident.