I speak weekly with Juni's mother (owner). She has a complicated set of illnesses, including lupus, heart problems, a a tumor between her brain and skull - which seems to have stopped growing, and more issues. So a lot.
Trump's Medicaid changes are already screwing her. To be honest, people have, at one point or another, questioned her diagnosis, but she finally found a great doctor a few years ago and has been stable (you don't really get better with Lupus). The doctor is out on Long Island. Now, she already cannot take the subway or train to to both immunity issues and mobility (she uses a walker).
Medicaid just declined everyone's funds (at least in New York, I don't know about other places) for paid travel to doctors. They told her to pay for it herself or use a local doctor or set of doctors. She would have to start from zero with these new doctors and can't stop one of her medications that they question. It is like me on Effexor and Lamictal - if I cold turkey I will have seizures.
As for paying herself - if you have any funds at all, you can't get Medicaid. So by definition, she doesn't have the money to go to her doctor. (That Medicaid is true for all users, who have to exhaust their own funds before Medicaid kicks in.
HUD Housing is already working to kick her out of her subsidized housing because she hasn't spent overnight in a hospital in 2 years. She has been instructed to go to the emergency room and gone repeatedly over the last two years but didn't stay overnight. Her doctor doesn't want her exposed to the hospital.
And there is nothing I can do to help.
It hurts.
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