Vigil to honor those who died for lack of healthcare access
Healthy Wyoming is hosting a candlelight vigil at 6:30 p.m. on the lawn of St. Matthew’s Cathedral, 104 South 4th Street, honoring those who died because Wyoming has not expanded Medicaid.
In Wyoming, as in much of the United States, people die for a lack of access to healthcare. That’s a fact most people are familiar with, but one that’s difficult to internalize.
Estimates range, but most put the number of deaths in the tens of thousands per year.
“People in Wyoming die, and are dying right now, because they can't afford to go to the doctor,” said Marcie Kindred of Equality State Policy Center.
Most research agrees that being uninsured leads to a host of worse health outcomes, including increased mortality rates.
For example, those who are uninsured go to the doctor less, which means progressive diseases, like cancer, are allowed to grow worse and more difficult to treat, before they are eventually detected. Meanwhile, people with insurance visit the doctor more regularly, and those check-ups provide more opportunities for the screenings essential to early detection of serious maladies.
As one systematic review puts it, “Insurance is the gateway to medical care, whose aim is not just to save lives but also to relieve suffering.”
Healthy Wyoming — a collaboration between Equality State Policy Center and several other organizations across Wyoming — believes the solution to these heartbreaking facts is relatively simple.
“Healthy Wyoming is a broad coalition with one specific goal: expanding the Medicaid health insurance program in Wyoming,” Kindred said. “There are many different members and everybody wants the same thing — to expand Medicaid and improve health care access in Wyoming.”
The coalition includes groups as varied as the Wyoming Hospital Association, AARP Wyoming, the Wyoming Interfaith Network and Wyoming Equality.
And tonight, across the state, members of that coalition will be hosting candlelight vigils, honoring those who have died because of a lack of access to healthcare. Vigils will take place from Cheyenne to Lander and from Rock Springs to Gillette.
In Laramie, the vigil begins at 6:30 p.m. on the lawn at St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Laramie’s vigil will include the testimony of storytellers, who are planning to share their own experiences of losing friends and family who were uninsured.
“Our storytellers will be honoring their memory, telling a little bit about their struggle and why they're not here with us,” Kindred said. “And we also have folks who are currently struggling who will be sharing those struggles.”
Wyoming is one of 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid. Expanding Medicaid involves taking up an option offered by the Affordable Care Act to cover individuals making too much to qualify for Medicaid under pre-ACA rules, but too poor to qualify for incentives like the Premium Tax Credit that help low and middle class Americans afford health insurance.
There are about 24,000 Wyoming residents who currently fall into that gap, and Medicaid expansion has been a hot-button political issue with state legislators for years.
But Kindred said the human cost of failing to expand Medicaid is often overlooked.
“The vigil is an effort to honor those that should be here with us that aren't simply because we have not expanded Medicaid,” she said. “If Medicaid would have been expanded, they could have gone to the doctor and received the help that they needed.”
A literature review from the non-partisan think tank Kaiser Family Foundation examined nearly 200 recent studies into the effect of not expanding Medicaid. That review found “positive effects of expansion across a range of increasingly complex and specific categories.”
The review found a growing body of research shows that expanding Medicaid reduces mortality in general, and for mortality from specific conditions like cancer, cardiovascular disease and liver disease. Expanding Medicaid also expanded care for those with disabilities and diabetes, reduced racial, ethnic and socio-economic disparities in healthcare, and improved access to mental healthcare as well.
Kindred said she hopes the vigil can put faces to these big ideas and extensive research.
“This is affecting our neighbors, your friends, your family, the folks that live in Wyoming,” Kindred said. “And expanding Medicaid is how we take care of our own.”
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