‘It’s time for someone to stick up for us’: Walker County’s need for Medicaid expansion

By Whit Sides, story collection coordinator, Alabama Arise

Walker County has gained notoriety in recent years as one of the epicenters for Alabama’s opioid epidemic. Overprescribing, lack of health care access and extreme poverty seemed to form a cursed trifecta leaving residents of the rural county to rebuild and recover.

Outside the headlines, community organizations and rural health advocates have been earning praise for their efforts to bring as many resources as possible to the northwest Alabama county of 67,000 people.

“If there’s a problem, you don’t have to look far for someone to help,” said Rev. Robin Hinkle of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Jasper.

Hinkle’s ministry has scaled up its food assistance to the community exponentially in the last year. The church went from distributing about 250 bags of food a week to more than 1,000 bags a day. Hinkle said the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated recession left more people than ever in need.

“The system is absolutely not working as it is, especially with the state and local governments,” she said.

Hinkle said many people she works with do receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits or other public assistance. But the income restrictions attached often force people to make painful decisions.

“I see it all the time,” Hinkle said. “When you lose your insurance and paycheck, what used to be $5 at the pharmacy is now $40. And the first thing you give up is medicine.”

‘A big, giant problem’

Hinkle said she has been offering more financial assistance than expected to families on the margins of the middle class. Many of these households have been hit hard by the pandemic, too. And resources can be scarce for families who make too much to qualify for public assistance, but still not enough to reliably pay the bills.

These are the families who are in Alabama’s health coverage gap. They make too much money to qualify for Medicaid under the state’s stringent eligibility limits but not enough to get a subsidy to help pay for a private insurance plan on the health care marketplace.

Alabama is one of 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid to cover adults with low incomes. Even before the pandemic, more than 220,000 Alabamians were caught in the coverage gap. And another 120,000 were stretching to pay for coverage they can’t afford.

“This is a big, giant problem,” Hinkle said. “Once you lose a job or are forced to work minimum wage, it’s very hard to be poor because of all the gaps in our system.”

Medicaid expansion would relieve the burden on families and those deciding whether to pay for medicine or buy groceries, Hinkle said.

“If we had better access and treatment options, it’s better all around,” she said. “Every dollar counts. If we could just get the resources, we can work to solve the problem just like we’ve done before.”

Removing barriers and strengthening rural clinics

Over the past decade, community organizations have come together to form networks bringing more money and treatment options into the county. Spearheaded by the Walker County Community Foundation, the Healing Network of Walker County includes 25 organizations providing prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery resources for mental health and substance use disorders.

One of those partners is Capstone, a group of rural health clinics located across Walker and neighboring Winston counties. 

“Over half of our patients are uninsured, and the majority of the others receive Medicare or Medicaid,” said Dr. F. David Jones, executive director of Capstone Rural Health in Parrish.
Jones is one of more than 300 medical professionals who signed a joint letter last week urging Gov. Kay Ivey to expand Medicaid.

Capstone’s clinics often house primary care, dentistry, pharmacy, social work and mental health care under one roof. While this one-stop shop can be invaluable for rural communities, Jones said access barriers are always involved when someone is struggling to make ends meet.

“We do still need to see valid ID, a bill showing your current address, and proof of income, which can be hard to get if you’re unemployed or don’t have a license,” he said.

Jones said the clinic tries to treat everyone who comes in. But even with local help, they can’t do it all.

“Communities can keep casting off the poor by just ignoring all their problems or burdening the church, but they need us more than they realize,” he said.

Medicaid expansion’s life-saving potential in Walker County

An injection of money from Medicaid expansion could be a lifesaver, Jones said. The funding could ease the burden placed on community health centers and UAB to treat areas of Walker County with low access.

“Medicaid expansion is a no-brainer,” he said. “With that kind of money coming in, we would grow. We could bring professionals in, and it could prop up a lot of the other community health centers that do good work.”

Jones said he hopes Alabama can put aside partisan politics and finally take advantage of the taxes we already use to pay for Medicaid expansion in other states.

“I hope the governor will sign on,” he said. “It’s time for someone to stick up for us. We should’ve been at that table a long time ago.”

About Alabama Arise and Cover Alabama

Whit Sides is the story collection coordinator for Alabama Arise. Arise is a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of congregations, organizations and individuals promoting public policies to improve the lives of Alabamians with low incomes.

Arise is a founding member of the Cover Alabama Coalition. Cover Alabama is a nonpartisan alliance of more than 100 advocacy groups, businesses, community organizations, consumer groups, health care providers and religious congregations advocating for Alabama to provide quality, affordable health coverage to its residents and implement a sustainable health care system.

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