Kaiser Family Foundation Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Coronavirus Threatens Not Only W.Va.'s Elderly, But The Children They Care For

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that older adults and people with underlying chronic health conditions are at increased risk for serious illness from the coronavirus.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, West Virginia has the highest percentage of at-risk adults of any state in the country.

This is one of the reasons Gov. Jim Justice gave at a press conference on March 13, when he announced that schools would close.

“We’re in an older state, and the elderly is where this monster attacks,” Governor Justice warned.

Some grandparents found relief in the Governor’s message because they feared that their grandchildren might unknowingly bring the virus home to them. This is especially meaningful in West Virginia where 29,000 children are being cared for by their grandparents, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count data for 2018. For many of West Virginia’s kids, grandparents are the only caregivers they have.

St. Albans grandmother, Gigi Bays, is raising three young grandchildren. She is busy these days making sure her older two grandsons are doing their schoolwork and that her house is staying clean. As a former pharmacy technician at a hospital, she says she knows how to disinfect.

“Let’s go back to like I’m working in the IV-room mode,” said Bays. “You know where every single thing we touch has to be sterilized.”

Bays, who is 60 years old, is on the cusp of the population that’s most at risk of serious illness from the coronavirus.

This includes people 65 years or older, those living in nursing homes, and those with certain chronic diseases, including lung disease, moderate to severe asthma, and serious heart conditions, among others.

Becoming seriously ill is a common fear among grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, according to Bonnie Dunn, statewide director of Healthy Grandfamilies. Dunn said this is one of the biggest fears grandparents have told her they have.

“If it’s a great-great grandparent, and we had four great-greats in the program over the age of 80 who were raising great-greats under the age of 10, you have to be real about it,” Dunn said. “Life is short at that point.”

The Healthy Grandfamlies program offers support for grandparents, from making contingency plans to dealing with school and technology, and especially at this time, Dunn wants grandparents to know about the program’s resources. She said it’s fortunate the program recently launched statewide.

“There is a structure in place to get help to these families,” Dunn said.

The structure includes a Healthy Grandfamilies program coordinator in every county. Julia Hamilton serves in this role for Monongalia County. She’s ready to answer the call of grandparents who need help.

“The idea of facing the next who knows how long as being the only one who is interacting with your grandkids, I would imagine we might get a phone call or two about that,” Hamilton said.

West Virginia is in its third week with schools and daycares closed. Hamilton said calls last week to the grandparents she’s worked with in Monongalia County found all in good spirits. Hamilton said school personnel are also using at-home meal deliveries as an opportunity to check on families.

Some grandparents continue to work, though, including Anita Dewitt, of Monongalia County, who is caring for three grandchildren. Dewitt works in billing at a hospital. She’s not worried about her own health. But she is worried for her 73-year-old mother-in-law who also lives with them and takes care of the grandchildren while Dewitt and her husband work. They’re taking precautions.

“Showering as soon as we walk in the door, making sure we’re washing our hands as much as we can at work,” Dewitt said. “Not letting anybody out of the house, keeping my mother-in-law in.”

For information on Healthy Grandfamilies visit the program’s website where information about each county’s coordinator is listed. Grandparents seeking resources from the program may also call 211 and tell the operator they are a grandparent who’s raising their grandchildren. The operator will use the caller’s zip code to connect them to the Healthy Grandfamilies coordinator in their county.

Report: Proposed Changes to Medicaid Threatens West Virginians

Analysis released this week found West Virginia could be one the most negatively impacted states in the country if Congress passes the House health care bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. The health policy think tank Kaiser Family Foundation reports reductions in Medicaid or block grant financing would be especially harmful to communities in West Virginia and ten other states.

Congress has been debating the legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act for weeks. In May the House passed a bill called the American Health Care Act. This legislation would, among other things, fundamentally change the structure and funding for Medicaid, including Medicaid expansion.

Right now, Medicaid is a shared state/federal program with no caps on spending. The House bill would do away with that open-ended arrangement and cap federal spending to a set amount based on current state spending patterns. This move would reduce federal spending by about $834 billion from 2017-2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office. As a result, most states would have to make budget decisions about which programs to fund and what to cut.

The Kaiser analysis looked at factors such as whether a state expanded Medicaid, demographics like poverty or age, and state revenue choices for replacing federal funding to determine which states would most likely be impacted. They found that while all states could face challenges making up the funding changes, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia would likely be most affected.

Supporters of the House health care bill say the change will give states more flexibility to customize state Medicaid programs and better serve local populations. Critics are concerned the move will save the federal government money, but result in lost coverage and decreased access to care.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Advocates: More than 200K in W.Va. Use Affordable Care Act

Health care advocates say new data analyses show that repealing the federal Affordable Care Act without a replacement would cut insurance coverage for more than 200,000 West Virginians with mental illness or addictions.

According to an Urban Institute analysis, 184,000 West Virginians would lose health coverage.

The Kaiser Family Foundation says more than 29,000 would lose federal tax credits under so-called “Obamacare” toward insurance premium payments averaging $388 million.

According to state officials, 169,614 West Virginians are enrolled in the Medicaid expansion authorized by the federal law.

Another 37,000 residents who have received coverage on the health insurance exchange the law established and could be affected by the repeal.

President-elect Donald Trump says his plan is to “repeal and replace” President Barack Obama’s health care law “essentially simultaneously.”