Health Care Advocacy and the Medicaid Gap in Alabama

We're in the middle of our second day of facilitating an enrollment fair. The public library in Brewton, AL has been kind enough to let us use their space to help people through the Marketplace.gov website, and so far, several people have come in to get help with their application.

The experience of working with people has been eye opening, and it has been a tangible example of how profoundly broken our health care system is in Alabama, and throughout the United States. We've had to explain to several people in our time in Alabama that they fall into the "Medicaid Gap," that space where one makes almost no money but just enough to avoid qualifying for Medicaid services, and certainly not enough to realistically afford a plan from the health insurance marketplace.

. @GovernorBentley please decide to expand Medicaid and give Alabamians access to affordable health care. It's the right thing to do!
— Andrew Battista (@rawdeal85) March 26, 2014

Alabama is one of 24 states whose governor (Robert Bentley) chose not to expand our state's Medicaid program. Bentley has been defiant in his decision to turn down federal funding for health care. According to Bentley in his state of the state address, "Our great nation is 17.2 trillion dollars in debt and it increases by two billion dollars every single day. That is why I cannot expand Medicaid in Alabama." But this is faulty logic. Alabama is already one of the worst states in terms of exploiting its poor citizens. We are only one of six states that taxes groceries to the fullest extent, and we have some of the lowest property taxes in the United States. Our increasing national debt has every but as much to do with the 683 billion dollars we spend each year on direct military spending than it does with whatever money one of our states would accept for health care coverage. In the United States, we fund what we want to fund.

What does this mean for actual people? Many of us think that you have to work to deserve health care coverage, but what we are finding out is that many people do work minimum wage or near-minimum wage jobs in retail outlets, yet these people still cannot afford the plans that are being offered to them. There are so many individuals in Alabama who are frustrated by cycles of poverty. Even with the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, health care coverage will not realistically be in their grasp.

One of the things we've pledged to do on this trip is to demand change in Alabama. I encourage everyone to do what I did this morning: send a tweet or make a phone call to Gov. Bentley's office and demand that he vote to expand Medicaid in our state.

Updates from the Road

Relaxing after a long day of canvassing on Monday

The Alternative Spring Breakers are in Atmore, Alabama today doing walk-in healthcare enrollments at the public library.  We've had some great (and some not so great) experiences so far.  It's been exciting to help people enroll in affordable healthcare plans--Karin even got a hug from a woman she enrolled--but we've also had some disappointing experiences where people fell in the "Medicaid gap," which means their income is below the poverty line but they still make too much for Medicaid.  We learned in our training that this would be an issue since Alabama is one of the states that chose not to expand Medicaid coverage, but it's been difficult to see it happen to real people.  We've got a revolution brewing, though--several of our Spring Breakers plan to organize petitions and letter writing campaigns when we get home.

Our walk-ins have been a little slow today, so we've improvised with some canvassing.  We've gone out to nearby businesses like restaurants, salons, and grocery shops to talk to people about enrolling.  Some people have been resistant, but others have been able to enroll on the spot.  We're going to do a little more canvassing in Brewton this afternoon.

While we were canvassing in Brewton yesterday, we noticed that a small fair was setting up in a parking lot.  Breana went over to ask when they were opening, and it turns out it's tonight!  We decided to attend the fair in preparation for our walk-in event tomorrow.  We'll talk to people about our event, and we might ride some rides as well.  They're the kind that make you realize you'll probably want to have health insurance before you get on...

So tomorrow (provided we survive the fair rides), we'll do another walk-in enrollment event at the public library in Brewton.  This will be our big event, and we're hoping that it will be a little more busy because of all the canvassing we've done and the radio and newspaper publicity that Bama Covered has done.

Even though we've had some setbacks, it's been a great experience so far.  We're strategizing for this afternoon's canvassing as I type!