A Lottery, and a Tense Debate on Health Care in Tennessee
A few nights a year, Tennessee holds a health care lottery of sorts, giving the medically desperate a chance to get help.
State residents who have high medical bills but would not normally qualify for Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, can call a state phone line and request an application. But the window is tight — the line shuts down after 2,500 calls, typically within an hour — and the demand is so high that it is difficult to get through.
There are other hurdles, too. Applicants have to be elderly, blind, disabled or the “caretaker relative” of a child who qualifies for Medicaid, known here as TennCare. Their medical debt has to be high enough that if they paid it, their income would fall below a certain threshold. Not many people end up qualifying, but that does not stop thousands from trying.
“It’s like the Oklahoma land rush for an hour,” said Russell Overby, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society in Nashville. “We encourage people to use multiple phones and to dial and dial and dial.”
The phone line opened at 6 p.m. on Thursday for the first time in six months. At 5:58, Ida Gordon of Nashville picked up her cordless phone and started dialing. Ms. Gordon, 63, had qualified for TennCare until her grandson, who had been in her custody, graduated from high school last spring. Now she is uninsured, with crippling arthritis and a few recent trips to the emergency room haunting her.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/us/tennessee-holds-health-care-lottery-for-the-poor.html
Welcome to America, where if you're sick but too rich for Medicaid, or have a job but your employer won't provide HC, "Patriots" will tell you just seek private charity or try your luck at this kind of lottery.
WE NEED SINGLE PAYER NOW!!!
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