Medicaid is the reason Kathleen O’Brien’s son can walk and ride his bike without falling.
The federal health insurance program has allowed him to “be a teen in the way that his peers are,” she said. Her son has a genetic condition that led to his ACL becoming severed, which she said required surgery that would have cost $80,000 without insurance. Medicaid covered it, along with a year of biweekly physical therapy.
“He’s not being yelled at anymore for sneaking onto the school elevator,” O’Brien said. “Or people not believing him when he tells them that his knee hurts.
“None of that could have been addressed without Medicaid,” she said, adding that even with a plan through Pennsylvania’s public insurance marketplace, the copays would have put care out of reach.
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