Over 40 healthcare advocates from across the state gathered in Cheyenne on Monday. Volunteers spoke one on one with legislators to share their experiences and urge lawmakers to take action on healthcare and health insurance access and cost in Wyoming.
The focus of Healthy Wyoming Legislative Day this year was Medicaid expansion, which was created by Congress in the 2010 Federal Affordable Care Act. The act expanded Medicaid qualification requirements to include most adults whose incomes are up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). In 2025, the FPL is $32,150 a year for a family of four. States can choose whether or not to adopt Medicaid expansion. There are currently 10 states that have not adopted expansion – Wyoming is one of them. In 2021, a Medicaid expansion bill passed the state House but failed to pass a Senate committee.
Jenn Lowe is a spokesperson for Healthy Wyoming, a nonprofit that advocates for Medicaid expansion in the state. She said Wyoming’s continued choice not to expand leaves about 19,000 people in an insurance coverage gap: those who don’t have jobs that provide insurance, but who also don’t quite qualify for Medicaid’s low income requirements.
“They are in-home care providers, they are waitresses, they are construction workers. These are hard working folks that just don’t have jobs that provide healthcare,” said Lowe. “In this day and age, we just don’t think that’s acceptable.”
On Monday, one volunteer shared that when her 16-year-old son got a job to buy a car, the additional income took her over the threshold and made her ineligible for Medicaid.
Lowe viewed Healthy Wyoming Legislative Day as a chance to educate lawmakers and ask some tough questions.
“What are you doing to help everyday Wyomingites have safe and healthy families and not have to make choices between providing care and prescription drugs and putting food on their table?” said Lowe.
Additionally, Lowe said Medicaid expansion could bring additional funding to Wyoming’s critical access hospitals, which is a designation given to essential rural hospitals by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Although there is not a Medicaid expansion bill in the state legislature right now, advocates hope to keep the issue a priority. The group felt that out of the hundreds of drafted bills in the legislature this session, there are none that would benefit healthcare consumers directly.
