I was a speech pathologist in a nursing home for over 15 years. I enjoyed my job and my life and then I suddenly fell ill. They found a pre-cancerous tumor on my pancreas which was removed by means of a Whipple procedure. I could no longer work after the surgery. I had a short term disability policy and after losing my employer based health insurance I continued to try and make the Cobra payments, which are exorbitantly expensive, around $600 a month and I wasn’t working. My employer based coverage was something like $25 a month.
I continued paying Cobra until I exhausted all my savings and I couldn’t make the payments anymore. At that time I was in the hospital and someone told me I would be eligible for Medicaid. My son signed me up and I got approved for Medicaid pretty quickly. I have type I diabetes because I don’t have a pancreas anymore and my diabetes is not well controlled with insulin. I have very low lows and very high highs and it is very hard to manage. I was very healthy before all this happened. It just came out of the blue. So when I hear them talking about cutting Medicaid significantly I fear I will die, I will die without Medicaid.