Did you get a notice saying you no longer qualify for your Medicaid benefits? Did you know that you have a legal right to appeal this decision? Put People First! PA will help you fight back.
Here’s a testimony from Jen, a Put People First! PA member in Southeast PA, who recently won her Medicaid appeal:
In March 2024 after about eight years of being on Medicaid, I received a cut off notice saying that I made too much money and was going to be cut. I’m a substitute teacher.When I got the notice I was sitting in a classroom full of teenagers and I started crying. I had no idea what I was gonna do. Medicaid has been the best healthcare I’ve ever had. With Medicaid, I could focus on my health, not whether or not something was covered, or whether I was gonna get a bill for some thing that I thought was covered, or finding out that I had a hole in my coverage because of some miscommunication or bureaucratic issue. With medicaid I could focus on my mental health and not fighting constantly for the medications to keep me well for other care, physical and mental healthcare that keeps me well. I can focus on my family. My job, my work, all of the things in my life.
So when I received my cut off notice, I was terrified. I was terrified of having to go back to Pennie for healthcare. I have been on marketplace insurance plans multiple times, for several years, with 2 different companies and the whole time it was a nightmare. I had high co-pays and premiums. There were times I thought I was covered and wasn’t and got huge bills for treatment that I found out afterward wasn’t covered for various reasons.
But fortunately, I’m a member of Put People First! PA. I had been involved for the last year with our Medicaid cut offs organizing drive, helping other people to appeal and encouraging other people to appeal cut offs. So when I got my notice, I knew that I have the right to appeal and that I have an organization behind me that would help me appeal and stick with me through it all, whether I win my appeal or not. I also knew that I could appeal immediately and keep my Medicaid while I waited for the hearing. Importantly, I knew that I wasn’t alone, that I had the right to healthcare.
PPF-PA was with me every step of the way. Within days of my receiving the notice, several of us met. PPF-PA members helped me by listening to how I was feeling. They helped me figure out how to immediately file the appeal and helped me to submit the appeal so that I kept my Medicaid. They helped me communicate with the welfare office to make sure it was still on and they’ve been continuously available to me to provide support: to listen to me, to answer questions, to deal with the welfare office and to make sure that my appeal went through and that my Medicaid stayed on while I waited for the hearing.
When I got my date for my hearing a couple months later in May, PPF-PA members immediately got into motion helping me figure out my case. We talked about how the welfare office determined that I made too much, but because I’m a substitute teacher I’m not salaried. I only make money when I work and so for the three months of the year that I don’t work and during the year when school holidays and vacations and breaks or days off, I don’t get paid.
In the end, the caseworker didn’t appear, so I won my case and get to keep my Medicaid on!!
This is all unnecessary. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can have it so much better if we fight and organize and build this movement so that everyone can have all of our human needs as human rights.
- Actions, Medicaid, Medicaid Cut Offs Organizing Drive, Member Reflections, Nonviolent Medicaid Army, PPF Members