Thousands of Americans are overcoming their political principles and apparent distaste of President Obama to sign up for Medicaid, the federal insurance program for low-income families and individuals.
The rate of sign-ups has surged in many states, surprising officials, while enrollment on private insurance has been sluggish.
In West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, more than 75,000 people enrolled in the means-tested program.
Waitresses, fast food workers, security guards and cleaners described feeling intense relief that they are now protected from the punishing medical bills that have drained their family budgets.
They spoke in interviews of reclaiming the dignity they had lost over years of being turned away from doctors’ offices because they did not have insurance.
However, Medicaid recruiters have met resistance among Obama detractors saying they sometimes feel like drug peddlers. In West Virginia Obama is often blamed for the coal industry decline and people they approach often talk in hushed tones out of earshot of others.
One recruiter said: “This man is not the anti-Christ. He just wants you to have health insurance.”
Eventually, though, people’s desperate need for insurance seems to be overcoming political beliefs. Rachelle Williams, 25, an uninsured McDonald’s worker from Mingo County, said she had refused to fill out insurance forms on a recent trip to the emergency room for a painful bout of kidney stones.
“I wouldn’t do it,” she said. But when she got a letter in the mail saying she qualified for Medicaid, she signed up immediately.
Access to health insurance won’t necessarily improve the health of the disadvantaged, experts say, but the mere fact of having it has dramatically improved mental health.
Researchers in Oregon examining what happens when people suddenly get Medicaid coverage found that physical health, like the prevalence of diabetes, and obesity, did not change much. But mental health improved dramatically, with instances of depression plummeting. One diabetes sufferer said the simple relief of having coverage had helped drive away her suicidal thoughts.
“You see it in their faces,” said Janie Hovatter, a patient advocate at Cabin Creek Health Systems, a health clinic in southern West Virginia. “They just kind of relax.”
