Alisha Gillespie: What Medicaid Means While Fighting a Cancer Diagnosis

Alisha Gillespie is a 36-year-old resident of Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District where she is the sole provider for her two sons currently living in her home. Medicaid has been part of her life for 37 years, she shared. “I remember being on it as a kid, transitioning to being a teen parent and receiving Medicaid for my pregnancies, and now transitioning to being an older adult with big health issues that surrounded me needing surgeries and all the things.”

Currently, Alisha is coming up on one year in remission from breast cancer.

She recalled the questions that ran through her mind after her diagnosis: “A lot of my worries were, ‘What will happen? You told me this diagnosis. What’s the follow-up? What will happen after that?'” Her treatment included surgery and reconstruction, and going into it, she was bracing for the bill. “I didn’t think [Medicaid] was going to help me because I thought I needed to come out of pocket with surgery costs,” she said. “Nobody really explained to me that my insurance would cover the surgery I received or the implants I received.”

Alisha navigated much of her treatment on her own. “I had to be my own advocate through this process,” she said. “I really didn’t have the best support in the medical field during that time. I really had to navigate this thing by myself.” Other breast cancer survivors stepped in where the medical system did not. “Thank God I had the support from other survivors who were able to guide me along and were in my corner to help me ask the right questions,” she said. “I believe if I wasn’t able to ask the right questions, God knows where I would be right now.”

That fear did not stay contained to the diagnosis itself. “My surgery was postponed numerous times because of fear — being a sole provider, wondering where my kids were going to be, whether I was going to make it out of this thing okay, whether I was going to survive it, what remission from cancer would look like, and whether I would need medication afterward,” she said.

Alisha was paired with a nurse through Keystone. “I was blessed to have a nurse through Keystone who helped me stay on track with appointments and breast imaging,” she said. “We wound up becoming good friends.” That friendship became a place where Alisha could speak openly. “I told her about the discrimination and a lot of things I was getting at the hospital, and she helped me navigate those things,” she said. “She kept telling me to keep speaking for myself, keep advocating for myself. If something didn’t feel right, it was okay to question it and okay to ask the questions. She was a blessing to me.”

Alisha’s pastor’s wife was another person she leaned on, someone she describes as being like a mother to her. Alisha said she called on her daily when she was stuck on a decision, and she was there for her when she needed to cry or simply needed someone checking in on her. “It was one of the most detrimental parts of my life, so I needed that support,” Alisha said. “I was really moving on trauma. I needed people in my ear that I knew I could trust who were going to tell me the right thing.”

At the time, Alisha was not working and not having to worry about the cost of her care on top of providing for her family made all the difference. “Knowing Medicaid would cover my treatment helped,” she said. “I didn’t need another bill on top of trying to manage my health at the same time.”

Medicaid’s role in her family’s life extends well beyond her own diagnosis. “Medicaid has really been a help for me and my family,” she said. “Some days I wish it would cover more for certain things, but it’s been a help. It’s been a help for myself, for my boys, with surgeries, procedures for them, and surgery for myself. It really has helped me more than anything.” One of her sons was asthmatic as a child. “He was in and out of the hospital. They knew me by name because we were there so much,” she said. “Looking back now, I don’t know how I would have met all the appointments or gotten the medication he needed to be able to breathe properly if it wasn’t for Medicaid.” Her younger children remain on Medicaid today, and she believes “they’re getting good care.”

Reflecting on her experience, Alisha said, “Health and wealth goes together tremendously. If you cannot take care of yourself financially and you have this detrimental health problem, how can you juggle both? It’s unrealistic for anybody.” She added, “Medicaid definitely helped me take that burden off my shoulder. It helped me know that when I went through the procedure, I wasn’t going to owe a ton of money afterward.”

Alisha’s story is not an outlier. It is the story of millions of Americans who count on Medicaid to be there when their health and their livelihood hang in the balance together.