… employers to provide health insurance, often at a high cost. Nearly a third rely on government-funded public health insurance, such as Medicare or Medicaid.
However, in Alabama, strict income requirements keep many people from enrolling in Medicaid. Alabama’s Medicaid program ties with Texas as the most restrictive in the nation. Poor pregnant women receive Medicaid for only three months after they give birth. Caregivers must live in extreme poverty, and earn less than $2,200 a year to qualify for Medicaid. “Able-bodied” people who are not pregnant or caregivers are completely ineligible for the program, no matter how poor.
In 2009, the Obama administration expanded Medicaid to cover millions more Americans above the poverty line. Republicans in Alabama fought that expansion and recently sought to add work requirements to the program.
Before 2010, women on Medicaid in Alabama qualified for free pap smears, but no follow-up care if their test came back abnormal. A federal program sought to close that gap, but bureaucratic hurdles worsened treatment delays for black women. After patients were found to be “cancer-free”, they were no longer eligible for the program, leaving cancer survivors without insurance.