Hi everyone. I wrote a post about healthcare a few weeks ago. It was a personal post about a situation that affected me directly. I have employer provided health care that I still pay a sizable chunk each month for, right around $500. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford that for my family. If you read the other post, you’ll know that the doctor I went to wouldn’t take my insurance. He helped me anyways. But, it still dumbfounded me. I have insurance from a big, national company, but I couldn’t receive care at the place that was available to me that day. Thankfully, the doctor helped me and he received no money for that. That’s remarkable these days, ain’t it?

Recently, the Trump administration presented their federal budget. I heard that Medicaid is going to lose $800 billion dollars in funding over the next 10 years, according to Fox News:  Trump budget to cut Medicaid, food stamps — put ‘taxpayer first,’ officials say

Who does medicaid help? According to the Health and Human services federal page, it’s these people, “In all states, Medicaid provides health coverage for some low-income people, families and children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities. In some states the program covers all low-income adults below a certain income level.” I know several people who receive their healthcare this way. They work low wage jobs and if they didn’t get medicaid, they wouldn’t be able to afford going to the doctor at all. And that includes their children. Hospitals are going to be affected by these cuts too. I heard that this is going to probably lead to a shut down of hospitals across this area including Hancock County and one in Hamblen County. If you’ve been to Sneedville, you’ll know it’s rural and very isolated. Closing their hospital will be devastating to its residents.

I’m concerned for all of those groups. Growing up, I went to the emergency room a lot. We didn’t go to doctors for preventative things, like checkups. We went to the ER because we were very sick. The bills were really high and we spent months making payments. If we’d had insurance, we could’ve headed off that sickness before we got to where we couldn’t go and we had to run up those big bills at the ER.

As my dad’s doctor told me that day he helped me out, something’s going to have to give in this country. I believe we need healthcare for all people especially in those rural areas where doctors can be scarce. And if people work two jobs and still can’t afford healthcare, then we have got to do something.

TETH