Kentucky tests how much to demand of Medicaid recipients
Late last month, while recovering in hospital, Kayleeann Hummell had an unusual epiphany after emergency surgery: She was grateful her health problems had happened now.
When the high school senior was sent home by the school nurse in intense pain, she headed to a hospital. Within 10 minutes she was being prepped for appendix surgery.
Growing up in a poor family in northern Kentucky she has been on Medicaid almost her entire life. On that day, she says, it literally saved her life. But if her health issues had struck this July, she says, “I probably would have died.”
July is when Kentucky will take the American health-care system into uncharted territory, becoming the first state in the country to enforce work and community engagement requirements for a portion of its Medicaid recipients.
For Ms. Hummell and others on Medicaid around the state, the looming changes are a source of fear and anxiety. For many Kentuckians who aren’t on Medicaid, the changes are an overdue effort to turn poor people into productive citizens. For the Republican administrations – in both Kentucky and other states including Indiana and Idaho – pursuing these changes at the state level, they are an opportunity to replace the Obama-era vision for health care with their own, a
Kentucky 'at the bottom of every list' for healthKentucky as testing ground'More questions than answers'
