Working extra jobs to escape the Medicaid Gap

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1996

Encouraging people to work – and contribute positively to communities and society at large – is a good thing. Encouraging hardworking Texans to work two and three extra jobs, just to escape a politicized gap in a law meant to help people… is a bad thing.

Listen to her story, and you decide if it’s time to change our policies and reward hardworking Texans like Alma R., instead of penalizing them.

“Because of a wrinkle in the Affordable Care Act, Ms. Ramos made too little money to receive federal aid for buying private insurance — and too much to qualify for Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. But she found a solution.

Encouraged by counselors at a storefront enrollment center here, she took on more work, busing tables at night and, more recently, cooking tamales to sell out of her tiny apartment. By raising her annual income to about $24,000, Ms. Ramos, 39, qualified for a subsidy that enabled her to buy insurance for just $20 a month.

“I want to be covered for my kids,” she said. “I’ll do whatever I need to do.”

Ms. Ramos is one of many low-income, working adults who are caught in what experts call the coverage gap, eligible for neither federal subsidies nor Medicaid because they live in states that have declined to expand Medicaid under the health care law. And like Ms. Ramos, many of those people are taking second jobs or working extra hours to increase their incomes, hoping to become eligible for assistance that will enable them to afford marketplace plans.”

What would you do if faced with the choice of simply working one job and having time with your children, or working extra jobs to escape the Medicaid Gap to protect your kids?

To continue reading the story, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/02/us/piling-on-work-to-escape-gap-in-health-law.html?ref=health&_r=0

 

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