Category: Uncategorized

In 2021, employers’ healthcare plans covered 49% of Americans. Employer-sponsored coverage gives Americans access to a vast number of healthcare providers within that network and typically provides a high quality of care. However, when an enrolled employee is terminated or laid off, the employee also loses their healthcare benefits.

Jackson, Mississippi, resident Ida Patterson noticed a lump in her breast two years ago. She admittedly wrote it off as nothing, but her father had a stroke a month later. It provoked her to see a doctor. His sudden change in health made Ida cautious about her health. She wanted to take control and know what was happening to her.

Ida first decided to see her primary care physician about the lump in her breast. Her primary care physician described the lump as scary and immediately referred her out to get a mammogram and then a biopsy. It only took a couple of weeks to go through all the tests. Doctors diagnosed Ida with Stage 3 Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Ida continued going to the oncologist provided by her healthcare plan and did everything necessary to try to improve her condition. Through it all, she continued to work. She worked from home when allowed, often sick from her chemo treatments.

Unfortunately, Ida’s employer released her from her duties last January, but the letter stated it was not because of her performance. As she continued her fight with cancer, Ida had to decide what to do next regarding health insurance. She desperately needed to continue her treatments. Going without it would be a death sentence.

Ida’s doctors and specialists did not accept Marketplace insurance, and she was also concerned that trying to replace them through Marketplace doctors would result in a lower quality of care for her. She wanted to avoid that at all costs. Ida decided to have her employer-sponsored health plan continued through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA).

COBRA offers former employees and their families the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods under certain circumstances. Reasons for eligible coverage can include voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduced hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. The range was detrimental if she would make it through the lumpectomy. However, it came at a steep cost of $543 a month out of pocket.

Ida feels her cancer diagnosis and the subsequent cost to the employer-sponsored health plan was why her job let her go. It’s wrong for companies to let employees go because of health situations beyond their control. They should be held accountable for disrupting people’s coverage, especially when it is not a preexisting condition or can be the difference between life or death.

Astria Goolsby was looking forward to an amazing day of marital bliss until she started having abdominal pain on the way to a wedding. Her pain was so severe she had to go to an MEA Clinic, where she found out she was experiencing pain from an ectopic pregnancy. Astria, the owner of Verve Health Station in Jackson, MS, was suddenly hit with a whirlwind of information as doctors explained that one of her eggs had lodged in her fallopian tubes, causing it to rupture.

Her life changed so drastically fast. Being a small business owner and personal trainer, Astria felt comfortable reserving her right not to spend money on health insurance because she thought she had control of her health. Her confidence diminished once she surprisingly found out she was eight weeks into a pregnancy she could never carry to term and had no insurance to cover the termination procedure. The mental stress was compounded by needing surgery—immediately.

The urgency made her worry about how she would pay for all of this. With so much information thrown at her, she saw all the expenses adding up. A significant help to Astria was a Medicaid representative coming in and explaining to her what rights she had as a pregnant woman and what she had access to as a single mother through Medicaid. Without knowing much about Medicaid and the available programs, the representative walked Astria through the process. The rep explained how Medicaid could help with her current situation in a way that relieved Astria from feeling helpless.

Medicaid took care of everything financially and alleviated a significant burden off her shoulders. It allowed her to focus on what was most important – her health. Not only did Medicaid cover her procedure it also covered up to six months of doctor visits afterward, which encouraged Astria to ensure that she made follow-up visits.

Astria’s story is one of many that shows the importance of Medicaid to women’s health. Medicaid allowed her to receive the necessary surgery and subsequent care while reducing the financial stressors placed on her. It allowed her to prioritize her health. The service Medicaid provides to women is invaluable, and thankfully it has been expanded to cover women and their children for up to a year after birth.

Having to feed, clean, nurture, and ensure that your kids’ needs are met can be challenging. However, being the mother of a special needs child alone is a mountainous responsibility only some people can do well. Thankfully, for Sandra Smith, she flourishes in being a mother.

Sandra, a resident of Central Mississippi, has three children. The oldest is 13 and very active in sports. The youngest recently started kindergarten. Her middle child Lavonda is special needs and requires twenty-four-hour care.

Lavonda was born prematurely, causing several complex issues. At birth, doctors noticed her enlarged ventricles. Lavonda was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disorder months later. So rare doctors said she had less than a 1% chance of getting it. Her medical professionals did not expect her to live longer than a year because of her complications at birth. Lavonda defied all odds and is nine years old.

Although she exceeded doctors’ expectations and continues to do so, she must be cared for around the clock. Lavonda is on a BiPap ventilator 24/7 to help her breathe and tracheal and gastronomy tubes. Medicaid covered and provided private-duty nursing for Lavonda’s care until 2019. Specifically, licensed practical nurses (LPN) would sit with Lavonda and provide the care she needed around the clock. Over the years, Lavonda and Sandra grew comfortable with these nurses as they had been in their homes providing the necessary care that Lavonda needed.

However, in December 2019, Medicaid changed its guidelines stating that any ventilator patient must be cared for by registered nurses (RN). Changing the guidelines was a massive disruption to Lavonda’s care because Medicaid no longer covered the LPNs the family was accustomed to working with for years. The change forced Lavonda to go a month without care.

It’s no secret that Mississippi has a shortage of RNs, and Lavonda feels the impact directly. The care company was scrambling to find RNs who could provide private-duty care in the area. They found two full-time RNs who could provide care to Lavonda Monday through Friday, but the high turnover for RNs left Lavonda with no coverage during nights and the weekends for more than six months.

Sandra switched Lavonda’s care provider in July 2020, hoping they would have a more consistent staff. We’ll call the company, Blue United. Unfortunately, they faced the same difficulty scheduling RNs, but they did staff the Smith’s with LPNs to ensure Lavonda would be with care around the clock. They continued using Blue United for two years with minimal complaints.

Due to new guidelines, when Medicaid found out Blue United was sending LPNs to care for Lavonda, they stopped funding the company, eventually forcing it to shut down completely. Thankfully for the Smiths, though, the owner of Blue United was familiar with Lavonda and her situation, so he paid out-of-pocket to ensure she never went without care when Medicaid stopped funding them. It was a divine gesture, but Sandra still had to find detrimental care for her daughter.

Sandra eventually moved on to another company. We’ll call the company Cross Healthcare Services, but they also needed help finding full-time RNs. The RNs from Cross Healthcare Services mainly traveled from Brookhaven and other locations even further away. Due to the pay and distance, the nurses could not commit to caring for Lavonda full-time, which is mandatory to keep her nose, mouth, and trach clear; suction and aspirate her; and ensure that nothing blocks her airway.

Not finding full-time RNs put Sandra in a tough position. She had a full-time job working Monday-Friday as well as two other kids. She relied on nurses to provide her daughter’s care while she was away. Sandra made the hard decision to take unpaid leave from work. It put severe emotional, physical, and mental stress on her.

While caring for Lavonda, Sandra continued looking for care companies, but each had the same problem. Sandra had to be both nurse and mother for more than seven months. Through it all, Sandra was determined to bring about change. She continually called doctors, disability assistance programs, local, state, and federal governments, and Medicaid advocating for her situation, trying to bring change to the process and care for her daughter.

Prayerfully in September 2022, Medicaid and the Board of Nursing came together on the terms of the scope of practice for LPNs and RNs. After reviewing the case, they determined to approve the utilization of LPNs for private duty situations like Lavonda’s when RNs are not available. The change allowed Sandra to return to work full-time, but the overall challenge of finding and keeping qualified nurses to provide care remains.

You and your doctor should be partners in your journey to the healthiest life for you. The partnership should include trusting that your doctor’s primary concern is maintaining or improving your health while you do everything you can to get the best results. Of course, that is hard to accomplish if your doctor is not listening to your concerns.

Many women across the state, especially women of color, do not feel their doctor has their best interests at heart. They have no comfort in the information they are receiving. Our anonymous interviewee is a survivor of medical neglect. We’ll refer to her as Brenda Yeller.

Shortly after getting over COVID, Brenda, a resident of the Mississippi Delta, was bombarded with constant fatigue. Everyday tasks like walking up the stairs became daunting. She decided to see her primary care doctor thinking there would be a quick and logical explanation and cure. However, she was met with a very unbothered demeanor and no answers. The doctor ordered blood work and quickly left the room, moving on with the rest of his day as if her feelings meant nothing.

She received a call from a nurse at her doctor’s office a few days later. The nurse explained that the doctor wanted Brenda to stop taking Lipitor because her glomerular filtration rate (GFR) went from 60 to 31, which shows a significant decline in kidney activity. Brenda knew African Americans represented one-third of the patients with kidney failure. It became a piercing worry as soon as she heard it, especially since she was not told why there was a sudden decline in her GFR. She had been taking Lipitor for quite some time. Why the sudden change in GFR activity?

It was also shocking to be told to stop taking Lipitor because it was prescribed for high cholesterol. She wondered how she would manage those high levels since she was not offered any substitutions for the prescription. Brenda had not received any real answers to her medical issues, which left her feeling she had no one to ask.

There were no follow-up calls to check on Brenda’s recovery or to make a follow-up appointment. When Brenda tried to call and schedule an appointment herself, her calls were never answered or returned. It was time to find a new primary care doctor. She wanted answers, but being brushed off deterred her from seeking additional medical help.

Although she eventually began to feel better after stopping the Lipitor, she still wasn’t back to her usual self. She had serious concerns about how her cholesterol levels would be affected, the plan to make her feel better, and what had caused her condition in the first place. She tried to make sense of everything on her own.

It took some time, but Brenda realized that managing her situation alone was not the best action. After all, her doctor was the problem, not her, and she should not have to risk her health. As of the date of this interview, Brenda has an appointment scheduled with a new doctor, who happens to be a Black woman. It’s unfortunate, but Brenda felt it was her only way to genuinely have a doctor see and acknowledge her as a patient worthy of explanation and care – a partner in health.

In April of 2004, Angela Williams was in a horrific car accident. The car flipped four times in the early, dark morning hours, ejecting her from the passenger side. She was thrown 100 feet away into a tree. She fell from the branches into a graveyard at a church.

Upon arriving on the scene, first responders couldn’t find her in the dark. Once the sun began to rise, they found her, but she wasn’t alone. A poisonous snake was beside Angela’s limp, beaten and disassembled body. Once the snake was no longer a threat, the paramedics began to retrieve Angela’s lifeless body, laying some of her organs on the gurney next to her.

The medical team did not think Angela would survive. The impact from the wreck and ejection severely damaged her face and body, resulting in a broken pelvis and being split from her legs to her navel. Angela died three times while being rushed to the hospital. A group of doctors who met her at the hospital were willing to do whatever it took to keep her alive, but were puzzled about where to start.

Nearly twenty years later, Angela is still alive. However, her fight to be here has been a struggle for her and all those around her. After the accident, Angela was in a coma for five days. She stayed in the ICU for over a month and remained in the ward for around two weeks. However, she was forced to leave because she continuously contracted infections in the hospital. Instead of returning to her home with her four boys, they all had to move in with her mother, Regina Curry, Ph.D.

Regina made drastic changes at her home to take in her daughter. Regina had to have ADA-accessible doors and a hospital bed in Angela’s new room. Regina’s husband transformed their den into the kids’ new bedroom, building two bunk beds. Regina was now responsible for taking care of her daughter and four sons.

Angela was bedridden. After the accident, she underwent twenty-four surgeries, including the reconstruction of her vagina, bowels, and other internal organs, five knee surgeries, rods and pins in her back and legs, and many others that brought her a great deal of pain and left her immobile. Angela had to rely on her mother, other family members, and her boys to do everything for her, from sitting in bed to using the bathroom.

The new responsibilities were trying for Regina at the time. She was working on her doctorate degree in social work at Jackson State University. Her only employment was working as an assistant at the school. On top of that, her husband, a military officer, was leaving for a fifteen-month assignment at the end of April. Once he left, it was all on her to ensure her daughter’s care and watch after the kids while trying to stay in school.

Complicating matters, Angela had Medicaid which covered most of her medical expenses, but it had many limitations on long-term care and devices she needed. Medicaid also didn’t provide her with a home caregiver. So, Regina and the family had to pay more than $2,000 a month to have someone watch and care for Angela when she was not home. Medicaid did not provide her with transportation to her frequent doctor appointments, which left the family paying for ambulances to transport Angela.

A home health program eventually approved Angela, which took some weight off Regina’s shoulders but took several months to get in. During this time, Regina had to juggle everything on her own. Regina and her family still had to contribute their time and finances, even with the program. The program only provided a nurse to come a few hours a day. Regina and other family members care for her at night. The program offered limited supplies. Regina and her family had to pay for whatever Angela needed or ran out of.

Angela’s accident significantly impacted her mother’s life and the four sons. Instead of being free to be kids, they had to be caregivers to their mother, which limited their childhood. The boys could be off playing but had to be there when their mother called for them. For Angela’s sons to have their mother bedridden at 31 years old was an unmeasurable shock to them. It forced them to grow up and take on the responsibility of caring for their mother, who couldn’t provide for herself.

Although everyone around her felt the accident’s aftermath, Angela carried the most considerable burden. Her health, ability to provide for her boys, and financial situation weighed heavily on her. Without Medicare, Angela saw several difficulties in getting the care she needed. She remembers countless times when doctors told her there were things they could do to improve her condition, but Medicaid didn’t cover it.

Angela was disappointed by the healthcare system in so many ways. Medicaid only offering six weeks of physical therapy took away her ability to walk with a walker earlier in her recovery. She could not get an AFO, a device to put in her shoe to hold her foot up and prevent it from dragging. Despite needing it after the accident to help her move around, she recently got it after going to a different doctor who gave it to her for no charge.

Medicaid didn’t cover automatic wheelchairs. So, she had to use a manual wheelchair that her boys had to push her around in because she was too weak to do it alone. Not getting the things she needed set her path to recovery back. One of her nurses even remarked that if she had gotten the stuff she needed initially, she would be back working and able to move independently.

Although Angela wanted to get better for herself, she tried to get better to return to work and take care of her boys. Even while restricted to the bed, her sons were her priority – often cooking for them using an electric skillet beside her bed whenever no one was there.

It was hard for Angela not to be able to provide for her sons. The monthly disability checks were only $800 and a mere $50 in food stamps. She was stretched thin with numerous medical expenses, prescriptions, and trying to provide for her four kids. She often had to decide whether to get her medications or food for the family. A choice that no one should have to make.

The stresses weighed heavily on her mental health. After waking up from the coma, Angela initially questioned why they didn’t let her die. Being bedridden made Angela feel like a burden to everyone around her. She thought she was unfairly disrupting their lives since she couldn’t do anything for herself. Her condition put her in a dark place, so much so that she had to check herself into the hospital because she did not want to be alive.

As necessary as mental health is, Medicaid did not assist Angela or her kids. Unfortunately, in 2008, five years after her accident, Angela’s son ZaQuan Bush committed suicide at age 12. Regina strongly believes all the built-up stress and anger from their mom’s accident and the inability to get mental health care on top of school issues led him to take his own life sadly.

One accident changed the course of Angela’s entire life and those around her because she couldn’t get the adequate care she needed due to her lack of insurance. Twenty years later, she finds it challenging to move around, still living in pain, and requiring surgeries that Medicaid will not cover. Her pain and condition have reached the point where Angela has considered moving out of state to get the care she needs to live her best life.

Dealing with the same pain and daily difficulties, Angela feels she has no choice, especially after seeing other people who had similar accidents in different places receiving care that improved their condition. Angela’s and Regina’s ask is simple: make healthcare in Mississippi better, so people can work to make their lives as normal as possible without sacrificing everything else.

Ramira Perez has made Mississippi her home. She immigrated to the state sixteen years ago and has built a strong foundation. She’s ingrained herself into the local community, adding two more bundles of joy, now the mother of four children.

Although she’s done her best to make Mississippi feel comfortable, not having health insurance has made it difficult for Ramira to live the life she imagined when she first relocated. Ramira suffered from high blood pressure and was diagnosed with diabetes.

Ramira’s blood pressure is a significant concern. It tends to rise to dangerous levels that send her to the emergency room. This condition caused her last pregnancy to be high-risk. Emergency room visits are the most expensive, but community clinics are cheap. Even the facilities for lower-income families can be problematic to afford.

She knows a bill is coming for every clinic, doctor, and emergency room visit she makes. It’s difficult for Ramira to relax in the hospital as she anticipates each dollar that adds up. The bills seem to continuously come in what feels like a never-ending chain.

In 2019, Mississippi had the fifth-highest uninsured rate in the country. Mississippi Today recently reported nearly one in five residents live in poverty. Mississippi’s healthcare system also ranks last among all states across various measures of access to healthcare, quality of care, healthcare utilization, cost of care, health outcomes, and income-based healthcare disparities.

Ramira is unemployed and does all she can to avoid having to make those trips. She tries to manage her health using the traditional medicines of her home country, making herbal infusions to keep her diabetes and blood pressure at low levels. As she struggles to self-medicate, she feels alone and forgotten. It’s as if Ramira and her community mean nothing to legislators. They don’t care about her and her community.

Being sick is expensive, especially when your illness causes you to lose your job. Essqulena Brown accumulated more than $300,000 in medical bills when she was diagnosed with lupus in 2012, and she’s still working to pay that back.

Before her diagnosis, life was going well. She was the breadwinner of her family, and had just obtained her master’s degree. She and her husband lived in Clinton, where they had a home, car, and necessities.

In March 2021, Essqulena began feeling sick. She frequently visited her primary care doctor, who prescribed different medicines and antibiotics. Over three months, she experienced fevers, felt weaker, more tired, and worse overall. Doctors could not diagnose her condition.

When it was time for summer vacation, Essqulena still didn’t have a diagnosis, and despite not feeling well, she went to Florida with her family. Unfortunately, she began to feel extremely sick and broke out in red bumps, prompting her to go to the Emergency Room. The ER doctors urged the family to let them keep her since they had to fly back home, but they decided to take Essqulena home. Upon returning home, Essqulena went to a medical center, where she stayed for two weeks, but still no diagnosis.

Her condition worsened to a point where she ran fevers in the hundreds daily, so on August 9, the day after her birthday, she went to another medical center, where she stayed until December 21. Toward the end of her five-month stay, they diagnosed her with lupus in October. She started chemo immediately, completing three rounds before leaving the hospital.

Of course, Essqulena was unable to work during this time. Initially, she was on medical leave, but after a while, the company had to let her go. Losing her job also meant losing her insurance. She had to wait to be approved for disability to apply for Medicaid and Medicare to continue medical care. However, the bills kept coming, and she accumulated $300,000 in medical bills. The chemo treatments alone were $67,000 per treatment.

The family’s financial woes didn’t stop piling up until Essqulena left the hospital. And without her working, the family took a significant hit. They lost their car and home and had no choice but to move to the family home in Louise, in the Mississippi Delta.

Being in the Delta without medical insurance made things difficult for Essqulena and her family. There are limited doctors in the Delta and even fewer specialists. She had to go to Jackson, an hour and a half ride each way, three to four times a week for her chemo treatments, rheumatologist appointments, and other doctor visits.

With no insurance or Medicaid, she had to rely on her husband, who would have to take off work, and friends and family to take her back and forth to these appointments. The family had to ask friends and family to sit with Essqulena since they couldn’t bring in a private sitter. Within months of waiting on her disability approval, her whole reality had changed. She lost everything as she fought to make ends meet and get her needed care.

Thankfully, the following March, things started to look up for Essqulena. Medicaid finally approved her. But there were significant limitations. Medicaid only covered up to five prescriptions. Essqulena was on 14. So, she and her husband had to pay for the other nine out of pocket. Additionally, Medicaid’s transportation didn’t take her to every doctor’s visit. She continued to find rides from friends and family.

In May, Medicare approved her disability insurance. The family saw significant improvements as they got a car, and things began to get back on track – the wide-ranging effect of not having healthcare reached every part of Essqulena’s life.

Her life could have remained steady if she had access to healthcare from the beginning of her hospital stay throughout her sickness. She could have kept the lifestyle she worked so hard to obtain. However, without it, her whole family was flipped upside down, impacting her entire life and those around her.

Financially, at one point, Florida Wright had a balance of more than one million dollars in medical bills that accrued from her visits and stays at the ER and hospital. One would think that with that cost of care, Florida would see significant improvement in her health, but unfortunately, she did not. All because she wasn’t insured.

“The insurance companies are inflating the costs,” said Florida, a resident of Pace, MS, financially and medically burdened because she did not have insurance. “We need some cap control on insurance so that everyone can afford it,”

Florida has always had asthma, and for a while, her condition caused her to have attacks severe enough to require ER trips roughly every three months. Whenever she went to the ER, they would transfer her to the hospital, where she’d stay for a couple of days or until her doctors thought she was better.

Florida also dealt with malignant hypertension brought on by a sudden rise in blood pressure which can affect many organs. For more than seven years, her systolic blood pressure, which represents the pressure in your arteries when the heart beats, never came below 200, showing that her condition was seeing no improvement.

The common theme here is that despite consistently having problems and going to the hospital, Florida’s condition never improved. She continued going to the ER for her asthma, and her blood pressure never decreased. Not being insured played a significant role in Florida’s never getting the necessary care to improve her condition, but it’s not for lack of trying.

When Florida first started having problems with her health, she applied for Medicaid disability as her conditions disrupted her life and made her make frequent ER visits. However, she was denied repeatedly. Without insurance, doctors did not give her the treatment she needed to improve her condition.

Florida can recount numerous times when she did not receive adequate care. There were times when doctors came to see her and spent very little time in the room. There were other times that doctors refused to refer her to specialists she needed because she was uninsured, assuming she would be unable to pay out of pocket. One incident Florida remembers acutely is being in a hospital needing a cardiologist. They said it would be $250 per visit, and she would need to come to his office before he would treat her because he needed to get paid, too.

“Just because a person is poor, just because a person doesn’t have insurance, doesn’t mean that they are irresponsible,” Florida said. “It means that some of us have responsibilities that others are unaware of. We all need insurance.”

Florida often felt doctors didn’t have her best interest in mind because she was uninsured. They often rushed her out of the hospital, and without information for follow-up treatments, she needed to get better. Florida has had an asthma attack, going to the ER on a Monday, and being discharged the following Friday despite seeing improvement in her condition. She was back in the emergency room the week before.

Due to not being referred to the specialists she needed and not receiving the follow-up treatments, Florida’s condition continued to worsen for seven years. Doctors brought her family in and told them there was nothing else they could do, thinking she would die. To get paid, Florida believes her doctors sent her sisters to the social security office, with their recommendation, to reach Florida on Medicaid disability. Eight days later, she was approved based on the same problems she was battling the entire time.

Although Florida eventually got health insurance, it was too late. The damage done is irreversible. She didn’t have the resources she needed to receive the preventative treatments and now has more diagnoses than most people can live with.

Luz Lopez is a naturally caring person. She’s willing to do just about anything she can to help anyone, especially her family. Family is essential to Luz, a housewife, and mother in rural Mississippi. Like most mothers, Luz spends so much time ensuring everyone has what they need that she neglects to take care of herself.

Although being a mom and a wife is more than a full-time job, she is technically unemployed, which means she has no employer-provided health insurance. Moreover, living in rural Mississippi means limited providers and clinics. Some clinics do not even see patients who do not have health insurance.

According to an April 2023 article in Mississippi Today, many state hospitals were financially vulnerable. During the pandemic, the cost to run hospitals increased — supplies and labor became more expensive, but hospital profit did not increase. The situation siphoned money out of the state’s struggling hospitals, and now the state’s healthcare infrastructure is crumbling. A third of Mississippi’s rural hospitals are still at risk of closure, and over half are at risk of immediate closure.

Luz feels like her health is declining daily, leading her to think something is wrong, but she has no idea what it is. Having no insurance and being unable to pay out of pocket for care keeps her internally stressing about all the what-ifs. The uncertainty has driven Luz to consider traveling to get medical care in hopes of getting the treatment she needs despite her lack of health insurance.

Luz fears for her life and health, not because of her surroundings but because of what’s happening in her body. It’s a scary experience she wouldn’t wish on anyone. Married and single stay-at-home moms of rural communities without medical insurance deserve to be cared for just as any white-collar professional living in a metropolitan area with Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage. Mississippi is full of people living in rural towns, and their needs don’t change because they live 100 miles from a clinic or a hospital.