As of recent years, 27.1 million Americans do not have healthcare insurance. Not having healthcare coverage can be risky, especially for low-income communities around the nation. For example, during COVID-19, many families were in need of healthcare; however, it wasn’t accessible, leading to serious illness and death. There are many ways the government can take initiative; one way is by expanding Medicaid. By expanding Medicaid, people with health issues can receive help paying for things like treatments, medication, and emergency visits.
Across the nation, many are struggling to hit the “free Medicaid benchmark.” Many experience the struggle of not being able to afford the important treatments or medication they need. Without healthcare coverage, many carry out pocket debt as well as sickness that isn’t being treated. Furthermore, during COVID-19, many people couldn’t cover expensive hospital trips and treatments, leading to worsening sickness and lives that could have been saved. “The researchers compared people with and without health insurance, examining death rates from COVID-19 and overall. Building on earlier research, they calculated that 131,438 COVID deaths in 2020 could have been avoided with universal single-payer health care” (Yale School of Public Health). Additionally, from this excerpt, we can analyze that with healthcare coverage or even access to healthcare, numerous lives around the nation could have been saved.
In response to this unfortunate event, a solution that can be used to protect lower-income communities’ healthcare coverage would be Medicaid expansion. If the government were to expand Medicaid, more opportunities could be granted to people who make a low income but still are slightly above the “free healthcare benchmark.” “The Medicaid expansion provision and the ACA market exchange subsidy contributed greatly to this sharp decline. As one of the major provisions of ACA, Medicaid expansion reduced health inequity by increasing access to health insurance coverage among low-income populations, who were at high risk of being uninsured”(National Library of Medicine). Furthermore, this excerpt proves that states have already been trying out Medicaid expansion, and it has efficiently decreased high healthcare expenses and provided healthcare coverage.
In conclusion, more than millions of low-income communities have a hard time receiving healthcare coverage. However, many states have implemented an expansion of Medicaid, so many people will have healthcare coverage. This has significantly helped many communities, and other states are considering implementing this Medicaid structure as well. This is beneficial for our healthcare in the future.
