Elizabeth Feldman: Hours from Death, Medicaid Paid for the Care That Saved Her Life

Elizabeth Feldman’s journey with Medicaid began when she could barely get out of bed. Each morning brought the Iowa native more pain and less mobility. She propped pillows under her neck and shoulders just to sit upright. Once seated, she slid her legs off the bed and faced the daily challenge of standing and dressing. Getting to work felt impossible.

She kept looking for a logical explanation. Maybe she had sung too loudly at karaoke. Maybe she had one shot too many. Her pounding head offered no answers. “Perhaps more sleep would help,” she thought.

Despite feeling worse by the day, Elizabeth pushed herself beyond her limits. Then, during a 15-minute walk through snowy sidewalks, she realized something had to change. She arrived 20 minutes late to work and sat for two hours until she could no longer stand. She approached her manager and informed him she was feeling unwell, he took one look at her and said, “Go home.”

She packed her things and left on foot. “If Uber even was a thing then, I wasn’t aware of it,” she recalled. She doesn’t remember most of the walk, only that she collapsed in the snow and cried. She eventually made it home, where she fell to the floor. Waking up took everything she had. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even lift my head off the floor.”

She grabbed her phone and called her mom. That call saved her life. She could no longer walk without help, so her mother drove her to the hospital and carried her inside. That was the last thing Elizabeth remembered before waking up nearly a week later in her mother’s bed, confused.

Her mother and brother explained what had happened. She had contracted strep throat, which had caused sepsis and spread through her bloodstream. She had been just hours from death. But instead of feeling relief, she felt anger.

“I was living on a shoestring budget, I had missed a week of work at a job that didn’t provide health insurance, and now I was going to be on the hook for thousands of dollars that I had no way of paying. I was going to lose my home. My phone had already been turned off during my week of fever dreams.”

Elizabeth’s mother sat her down and helped her apply for Medicaid. “That was life-saving.” When she was approved, Medicaid retroactively covered her hospital bills. It also gave her access to regular preventative health care like annual exams. She could finally get the medications she needed, including birth control. “If I’m sick for any reason, I can get care…that’s because of Medicaid.”

Now Elizabeth fears what new changes to the program could mean for people like her. “The Trump administration’s plan to gut Medicaid will not only dangerously harm Iowans, they could cost the state more than $8 billion.” She knows those changes will reduce federal funds to levels no state could overcome. That will lead to cuts in coverage, elimination of essential benefits, reductions in provider payments and cost shifts to local governments.

“Currently, more than 72 million Americans, including more than 650,000 Iowans, rely on Medicaid to access quality health care.”

Elizabeth believes the country is reaching a critical moment. “We’re at a tipping point in this country and in this state when it comes to health care.” For her and many others, Medicaid is not a political issue. It is a lifeline. “This program allows working-class Iowans and their families to get the vital health care they need, and we will hold the politicians who work to cut Medicaid accountable.”