LTE: Montana Medicaid keeps me working as a caregiver
I’ve been working in long-term care for 11 years, both in nursing homes and as a home healthcare aid.
As a caregiver, I feel honored to be welcomed into a client’s home and help care for them. Montana’s Medicaid expansion has ensured that even more of our loved ones can receive the care they need to stay at home and live and age with dignity.
I work very hard at my job, and unfortunately do not make enough to afford health care on my own. I’ve been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It feels like I have the flu all the time and every muscle aches, and it never goes away. It makes it incredibly hard to do my job. I take a pill three times a day, and if I didn’t have Medicaid, I would have to pay $90 a month that I don’t have. I was in the ICU with hypokalemia, severe low potassium, three times last month. I was on an IV drip, for five days at a time. Thankfully, because I have Medicaid, I was able to get the treatment I needed and can continue to work.
Republicans and Democrats need to work together to care for our older generation and lift the sunset on Medicaid expansion to prevent any harmful changes that keep people like me from getting the help we need. My clients and families are counting on me, and we’re counting on them.
Leah Doerr
Billings