Healthy Wyoming recruits business owners for Medicaid expansion campaign
The statewide coalition hopes to demonstrate broad-based support for closing the Medicaid gap and insuring the 24,000 Wyoming residents who find themselves there.
Wyoming is one of 12 states which has not yet approved Medicaid expansion. Healthy Wyoming, a statewide coalition of more than a dozen organizations is hoping to change that during the 2022 budget session of the State Legislature.
“Primarily (Better Wyoming) is the lead organization on building the grassroots movement,” said Nate Martin, Better Wyoming’s executive director. “So what we’ve been doing is organizing Healthy Wyoming chapters in communities across Wyoming, mostly county-based.”
Ahead of the session, Healthy Wyoming is circulating a letter its members are hoping business leaders will sign. Martin said the letter calls on Wyoming lawmakers to expand Medicaid and is meant to demonstrate broad-based support for the cause.
“Healthy Wyoming has created a letter that they are asking business owners to sign onto in order to demonstrate business community support for Medicaid expansion,” Martin said. “We are certainly interested in having Laramie business owners who support Medicaid expansion sign onto that letter. Healthy Wyoming is going to distribute it to all the members of the legislature, and also publicize it in statewide media in advance of the 2022 legislature session.”
Before the Affordable Care Act and to this day in states that have not expanded, Medicaid covers only the very poorest, while the ACA’s premium tax credit only kicks in for those making about $12,800 or more a year. The result is that many find themselves in the “Medicaid gap,” making too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to qualify for the tax credit. In Wyoming. About 24,000 people find themselves in the gap. This population frequently goes without health insurance, meaning they are less likely to seek out preventative care and less able to pay hospitals after emergency care.
Alongside Better Wyoming, the Healthy Wyoming coalition also includes the Wyoming Hospital Association, the Wyoming Education Association, the Wyoming Interfaith Network, Wyoming Rising and Families USA.
Martin said Healthy Wyoming has half a dozen active county chapters in the state, each with representatives encouraging individuals and business owners to support the movement.
“We also help with communication – creating content that informs people about the different benefits that Medicaid expansion would have for the people of Wyoming,” Martin said. “Whether that is ensuring 20,000 people who don’t have access to healthcare right now can get it, driving down uncompensated care losses for hospitals that in turn drive up health care costs for everyone across the state.”
In September, Healthy Wyoming hosted a series of vigils across the state to commemorate those who have died or are suffering because they do not have access to basic health care.
“Basically all rural red rectangular western states that have passed Medicaid expansion, (passed it) after the creation of a robust grassroots movement,” Martin said. “All of our neighbors have passed it – Utah, Idaho, Montana – so that’s what we need to do in Wyoming in order to make this a reality.”
On Feb. 14, the first day of the session, Healthy Wyoming is planning a midday rally at the Capitol Building in Cheyenne. Community participation is encouraged by those who support the cause.
“We know for a fact that the majority of people in Wyoming support Medicaid expansion and that is true across political parties,” Martin said, referencing a poll conducted by the New Bridge Society on the behalf of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. The poll finds 66 percent of Wyoming residents support Medicaid expansion. That includes 58 percent of Republicans, 64 percent of Independents and 98 percent of Democrats.
“That’s the work to be done – showing that the people of Wyoming want this,” said Martin. “We want the legislature to pass this policy and that’s what we’re going to do.”