I would not be here today without Medicaid.
During the pandemic, I fought a COVID-19 infection that resulted in a rare autoimmune disease called dermatomyositis. I was in tears when my doctor told me that this condition would raise my cancer risk by 30 percent – all I could do was pray I’d get lucky and avoid it. Unfortunately, I got breast cancer.
Even before these unexpected devastating health issues, life was already a struggle. However, since I got sick, things have gotten worse. I can no longer continue my career as a pharmacy coordinator. My husband has had to support the two of us and our four children off his limited income from driving forklifts. I am at my weakest point in life, but I’m grateful to still be alive.
Medicaid keeps me in the fight. To manage my serious immune condition, I am on a strict medication schedule. I am injected with immune antibody drugs twice a month. Without insurance, the total cost for this treatment program would be $180,000 every month. What working family can afford that?
While my husband’s forklift driving job allows me some insurance coverage as his spouse, it doesn’t cover nearly enough for my treatment. Medicaid fills the massive gap and has given me the chance to live a semi-normal daily life — for now.
By helping me afford my immune system care, Medicaid allows me to think longer-term and try to juggle my several other medical needs. I pay over $500 a month out of pocket in prescription copayments and over $150 a month to cover over-the-counter medications and procedures for my muscle injuries. I can also save up for a critical medication not approved for Medicaid funding, which treats some of the severe symptoms from formerly having breast cancer. Without Medicaid, I could not begin to think about these other conditions.
While Senator Rand Paul had the backbone to vote no on the recent spending megabill, it angers me deeply that President Donald Trump and my Senator Mitch McConnell decided to pull the rug out from under me and so many others in need.
I’d be dead in a matter of months without lifesaving Medicaid support, and there are many others who have it worse than me. I’ve met dialysis patients at the pharmacy who would not make it past the week without their Medicaid coverage. Did the President and Senator McConnell vote to kill me and others across Kentucky and our country?
To add insult to our injury, Senator McConnell reassured his colleagues in Congress that Medicaid cuts wouldn’t be as unpopular in the long run because we’d all simply ‘get over it’. One week later, President Donald Trump seemed not to realize that Medicaid would be affected at all by his bill.
President Trump and Senator McConnell: since you two do not understand the extent of what you’ve just done, I offer my story as an example. Once your Medicaid cuts come into effect, Americans will die every single day because you made it impossible for them to afford crucial and live-saving medical care. Mark my words: when any politician who supported these cuts comes up for re-election, we will not ‘get over’ what they did to us.
Karen Saylor is a former pharmacy coordinator from Louisville. As she battles cancer, she uses Medicaid to cover life-saving medications.