"Everyone Deserves Care": Iowa Mom Fears Cuts to Her Kids' Medicaid

With the GOP threatening massive cuts, Kendra H. speaks on how Medicaid cuts would impact her family

Kendra H. is an Iowa resident with children on Medicaid. The following interview is edited for length and clarity.

Connie Chavez: Can you share how safety net programs like Medicaid have helped you and your family?

Kendra H: Yes, so four of my five children are adopted out of foster care, and they have a very high ACE scores—adverse childhood events. Because of that, they have a lot of trauma that they're dealing with, and that presents in a variety of ways.

My son used to do speech therapy at school. That is no longer happening. So we had to do speech therapy outside of school. I'm very lucky because my husband and I are better off than a lot of people probably are and more available to take our kids to these other programs. But it's still not super convenient, you know. So every other Friday, my son has therapy, which means I'm missing two hours of work. So for parents who can't afford that flexibility or afford therapy financially, what are they supposed to do? My kids aren't the only ones that need services.

CC: If these safety net programs were slashed, what are some of the difficulties or sacrifices that you and your family would have to make?

KH: With my kids, the public safety net of school really provided them the ability to get out of unsafe homes. As those things get cut, there are more and more children who are not going to be receiving the care that they need. So when you have these students in homes where either their parents are unable or unwilling to provide care for one reason or another, it's really important that children are at least seeing some of these providers at school.

For example, that's where they noticed that my child had hearing problems. My oldest, she ended up needing two sets of tubes in her ears. They noticed that at school. My son ended up needing three surgeries in one day. They caught that at school. He also needed ear tubes. They noticed that their teeth were not well cared for. So they were seeing a dentist at the school. And that's part of what opened up the the case with Health and Human Services and making sure that they were in a safe home. So when you take away these services, it becomes really scary for these kids, because sometimes their basic needs aren't being met at home.

Then for our family, my husband and I both work full-time or overtime. So having to skip work consistently to provide those services—I have five kids, so that's a lot of dentist appointments, a lot of eye appointments, a lot of therapy appointments.

So it takes quite a lot of effort to schedule all of that. And also to miss work to provide those things, which they need.

But I think the more things that we could provide at school where they're at every day, it's really important.

CC: Why do you think Trump and Congressional Republicans want to cut Medicaid, especially when they claim to support families?

KH: So my representative is Zach Nunn. Our kids were in the same class. I met him soon after my first set of kids came to live with us. And I've been contacting him since then. He's also a foster parent, or at least he was, which means his kids still have Medicaid, because in Iowa—I don't know if this is everywhere—your kids, if they get adopted out of foster care, they remain on Medicaid until they're 18. You can add them to your private insurance if you would like, but they have that backup, which is really important.

My kids have done occupational therapy. They've done speech therapy. They've done mental health therapy. They've had various dental issues, because when you have kids coming from homes where money is not always available and where care is not always provided in a way that we would want, they end up having more health problems.

And so to cut Medicaid is just like—I just don't understand. Growing up super conservative, we went to church every Sunday and Wednesday, like the whole deal. I don't understand how people look at other human beings that they claim are also created by God and say, I don't think you deserve this.

Because not once did Jesus ever literally look at someone and be like, oh, you want to be healed? You don't deserve that. He did not care that some of the people that came to see him were not going to be his followers. He healed them anyway. So it's so hard for me to understand, as a Christian, or just as a person, why do you think some people don't deserve this?

Everyone deserves this. And especially when it comes to Medicaid, which in Iowa is a lot of children. Like who looks at a child and says, you don't deserve this.

CC: What message do you have for Members of Congress deciding whether or not to support the Medicaid cuts?

KH: It's not very polite, probably. I don't understand why you think people don't deserve care.

Everyone deserves care. Everyone deserves to be safe. Everyone deserves to be healthy. No one should have to be worried that they can't get medical care if they need it.

And so many problems could at least be partially addressed by people just having a safe place to live, enough food to eat, and being taken care of healthcare-wise.

Those things would change so many things. You talk about wanting to keep families together, or you want women to have more kids, or you want kids to perform better in school, or you want workers to do a better job at their work.

All of those things would be improved by having somewhere to live, enough food to eat, and healthcare. It's that simple. When you take care of people, people do better.

It doesn't make any sense not to provide those things.

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