Opinion: Federal bill risks Alaskans’ lives, including those of patients with cancer like me

I returned home to the United States from Scotland in March of 2020 with my master’s degree and a lump in my breast I had yet to discover.

The next day, the world started to shut down from COVID-19. Three weeks later, I discovered that lump and my cancer journey unofficially started. On my 34th birthday I underwent an MRI, got my diagnosis and it became official. My world suddenly looked nothing like it did a few weeks earlier when I boarded that airplane.

As a student, I was covered by Scotland’s national plan and had yet to get settled with a plan back home. When I was diagnosed, hospital staff helped me apply for Medicaid. I was worried people would look down on me.

Some people think not having insurance all ties back to not having a job. That is one of the reasons a person might have Medicaid coverage, but it covers so many others as well, including seasonal workers in tourism, like me, commercial fishing and energy as well as children, women who are single moms and folks in nursing homes. More than half of Alaska employers do not provide benefits as part of work compensation.

I think of all the times people are out of work, like I was, through no fault of their own. It’s not laziness or lack of ability, but simple timing. My husband is a doctor and we spent a month without health care when he was moving from one job to another. There’s absolutely no reason someone should risk death because they’re between jobs.

All my doctors and other medical staff took great care of me, and the treatments and technology they used to beat back — and ultimately defeat — my disease would not have been possible had financial barriers been in place, even partially.

Access to Medicaid may well have saved my life, and it certainly has saved the lives of others. Having access to Medicaid allowed me to make decisions about my treatment without worrying about cost, debt, or financial ruin. A cancer diagnosis is enough to worry about, without wondering which treatments you can afford without potential bankruptcy. That’s a dark choice and not one anybody should have forced upon them by something like a cancer diagnosis.

Six years later it saddens me to think this program could soon be unavailable to other folks in my situation. The proposed cuts to the federal Medicaid program could put significant limitations on what we in Alaska call Denali Care and Denali KidCare. If passed, the “Big, Beautiful Bill” could make it so that health care coverage will be financially out of reach for many, including seasonal workers like myself. As a sea kayak guide, I do not have benefits through work but am fortunate enough to be insured through my husband’s employment.

The bill’s $1.1 tillion in Medicaid cuts will remove coverage from more than 25,000 in our state, but the downstream effects will hurt far more folks than just those who currently access care through the program. New data from the University of Alaska Anchorage indicates an estimated 3,000 jobs will be lost and uncompensated care costs to Alaska hospitals will result in increased premiums for folks on private insurance plans, which will lead to fewer people being able to afford those and so, yet another wave of uninsured. Alaska will be one of the hardest states hit in percentage of jobs lost and the financial hit to our economy is estimated at more than $320 million annually.

The cost to our state will be staggering yet our federal lawmakers seem to be on board with it despite warning signs coming from all angles — health care providers, economists, business leaders and even the Alaska Legislature, which passed a resolution asking Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich to fight the bill on their behalf.

I sometimes think that my cancer journey has been pretty “easy” compared to what some people go through. I did have three surgeries to get it properly removed, but I didn’t need chemo, and I had a great support system.

But that’s the point, right? It’s cancer. No one ever really has it easy. And thankfully Medicaid is there to take away one aspect of it that could make everything so much harder.

If our lawmakers hear our voices above those of the other D.C. power brokers, they’ll know the best decision.

I hope Medicaid is there for those who need it for generations to come.

Kristen Lindsey lives in North Pole and works as a sea kayak guide out of Seward.