Myra Garcia is one of tens of thousands of people in Wyoming who work jobs that don’t provide insurance and who can’t afford it through the Healthcare Marketplace.
When she found out she had stage-four cancer, Myra worried not only about her health and how to stay alive to care for her family, but also about the crippling financial burden.
Myra’s surgery and chemotherapy cost more than a quarter of a million dollars. The hospital waived many of those costs, passing them on to other patients in the form of higher prices. But Myra still faces unmanageable medical debt, on top of the hundreds of dollars she must pay out of pocket each month for ongoing treatment.
If Myra lived in any other Mountain West state, she would be eligible for insurance through Medicaid. All of Wyoming’s Rocky Mountain neighbors have updated their Medicaid programs to cover low-income residents.
But Myra was born and raised in Casper and lives in Laramie. For her and her family, Wyoming is home. And Wyoming has refused to extend Medicaid coverage to people like Myra, despite the burden it places on her, on her family, and on our entire healthcare system.
