In Appalachia, shifting political winds have forced Republican lawmakers to expand Medicaid. Could this be the start of a trend?
Mary White had noticed her knee hurting on and off for a while before she blew it out last October. “I turned around to go down the steps after I locked the door, and it kicked out the side and tore that ligament in there,” she said. White, who turns 64 in August, does not have health insurance. Her husband is on Social Security and Medicare, and between that and her slightly better-than-minimum-wage income at the Binns-Counts Community Center in Clinchco, Virginia, White doesn’t quite qualify for Medicaid.
