Paperwork stands in our way of helping

My friend nearly lost her life because she fell into the Medicaid gap. Along the way, she was required to fill out paperwork for an application for financial “help” from the county. Tens of pages of information. And they gave her three whole days. The hospital told her that they could not accept her for emergency surgery until the county had approved her application (which was for a loan, not a hand-out). Meanwhile, she has children and runs a day care center serving our small community. One small experience that shows that paperwork requirements are not about helping people who already work with their health and do nothing to keep people working, or even alive. Paperwork stands in the way of communities helping each other.

Work requirements on Medicaid expansion are wrong. Too many people will suffer — people will lose coverage! Is this closing the gap? Working people coud lose coverage. I have a Ph.D. and can still not figure out health insurance in this country. Please do not add to that burden.

They also put a burden on me. My taxes will be used to fund a new bureaucracy and to employ more of the computer-savvy who are not hurting for jobs. It will also result in more employment for lawyers, who are skilled at paperwork, and (I’m guessing) have fewer practitioner lacking health care. This is not what I voted for in Prop. 2.

Other states who have done this have increased the uninsured rate, causing higher health care costs for everybody. Everybody. That includes you, yourself and I.

NANCY GERTH

Sandpoint