Why Conservatives Are Willing to Let People Like Charlene Dill Die
Obamacare didn't come with "death panels," like conservatives claimed it would. So, Republican governors and state legislatures formed their own. Until the death of Charlene Dill, the victims of those death panels were invisible.
Conservatives constantly say that poor people are lazy. That hardly applied to Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three in Orlando, Florida. Dill worked at three different jobs to support herself and her children, and pay for a divorce from her estranged husband.
The working poor are a lot like Charlene Dill. They work in low-wage jobs that don't pay livable wages. Worse, they're punished for working, because they become ineligible for state assistance programs. Charlene Dill earned about $11,000 a year from her three jobs. It doesn't sound like much, but it was actually too much.
Dill's earnings were well below the federal poverty rate -- $23,850 per year for a family of four. But state governments administer Medicaid and set their own eligibility requirements. Dill earned too much to qualify for Florida's Medicaid program, which puts an income cap on eligibility. Dill needed to earn less than $4,535 per year to qualify.
Like millions of Americans before health care reform, Charlene Dill was trapped in the "Red State Donut Hole." She earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, and to little afford private insurance. So, she lived and worked every day with untreated pulmonary stenosis, because she didn't have health insurance.
The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, but opened the door for states to reject the law's expansion of Medicaid. In a show of political opportunism and depraved indifference towards the poor, Republican governors and legislatures in 19 states opted out of the Medicaid expansion.
Obamacare didn't come with "death panels," like conservatives claimed it would. So, Republican governors and state legislatures formed their own. Until the death of Charlene Dill, the victims of those death panels were invisible.
Conservatives constantly say that poor people are lazy. That hardly applied to Charlene Dill, a 32-year-old mother of three in Orlando, Florida. Dill worked at three different jobs to support herself and her children, and pay for a divorce from her estranged husband.
The working poor are a lot like Charlene Dill. They work in low-wage jobs that don't pay livable wages. Worse, they're punished for working, because they become ineligible for state assistance programs. Charlene Dill earned about $11,000 a year from her three jobs. It doesn't sound like much, but it was actually too much.
Dill's earnings were well below the federal poverty rate -- $23,850 per year for a family of four. But state governments administer Medicaid and set their own eligibility requirements. Dill earned too much to qualify for Florida's Medicaid program, which puts an income cap on eligibility. Dill needed to earn less than $4,535 per year to qualify.
Like millions of Americans before health care reform, Charlene Dill was trapped in the "Red State Donut Hole." She earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, and to little afford private insurance. So, she lived and worked every day with untreated pulmonary stenosis, because she didn't have health insurance.
The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, but opened the door for states to reject the law's expansion of Medicaid. In a show of political opportunism and depraved indifference towards the poor, Republican governors and legislatures in 19 states opted out of the Medicaid expansion.
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