Losing Patience, and Patients, With Medicaid

Sonya Lott hadn’t seen a doctor for at least 10 years when she signed up for Washington State’s Medicaid program in January and got a checkup at a community clinic in Yakima, 140 miles southeast of Seattle. Tests revealed severe high blood pressure and heart problems. Lott, who’s been staying with friends and family since losing her job at a hotel last May, went on medication and has returned about every two weeks. “With the health problems that they’re finding that I have, I don’t think I’d be living too much longer” without care, she says.

Lott didn’t qualify for Medicaid until this year, when Washington and 25 other states widened eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. As a result, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that about 8 million people will join the government health insurance program for the poor in 2014. By the end of February, more than 3 million had signed up.