Casey: Franklin County woman caught in the health care coverage gap

Va. lawmakers refuse to expand Medicaid

Amy Hedges, a working single mother of three who lives in Penhook, earns too little to qualify for a health-insurance subsidy under Obamacare; too much to qualify for state-administered Medicaid; and not enough to afford premiums by herself. She's one of 400,000 Virginians with the problem.

Posted: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 9:30 pm

By Dan Casey dan.casey@roanoke.com 981-3423

Before we get into the reason Amy Hedges cannot get health insurance coverage, let’s first consider all the different hats she wears in life. ... The 27-year-old divorced mom lives in the Franklin County community of Penhook, near the south end of Smith Mountain Lake. ... For the past eight years she’s worked full time at Carl’s Place, an iconic diner along Virginia 40 that’s about 16 miles east of Rocky Mount. In the slow season (winter) she’s there five days per week; in the summer Hedges works six. Her 2014 earnings totaled $16,245.

Hedges has two daughters, Haily, 5, and Kurstin, 9, and a 7-year-old son, Brady. She’s raising them by herself, in a rented 1929 farmhouse that she heats with wood. She coaches their three rec-league basketball teams. She also volunteers one day per month at a nonprofit in Rocky Mount.

When you break down all those different tasks, it looks like this: Hedges cooks, cleans, washes laundry, gets her kids off to school each morning. ... She meets them at the school bus each afternoon, then does errands, helps with homework, runs basketball practices, makes dinner, handles her bills, plays games with her kids, then puts them to bed. On Saturdays she coaches basketball games. ... Aside from that, she’s at Carl’s Place 35 to 45 hours per week, preparing and serving meals. Somehow she manages to squeeze in volunteer secretarial work at the nonprofit, too.
....

She believed she was a perfect candidate for an Obamacare subsidy, which is designed to help low-income workers afford health coverage. But she was wrong. For the head of a household in a family of four, the minimum income to qualify for the subsidy is $23,850. Hedges earned $7,605 too little.