An Update from Alabama

August 2023

In advance of this Labor Day, Community Catalyst worked with Cover Alabama to take a look at health care options for working people in Alabama. In this addendum to a March report, Health Care Coverage Gaps Among the Working Poor: Low-Wage Workers, Medicaid Eligibility and Employer Subsidized Plans, we found that workers in Alabama – like the other 10 states whose policymakers refuse to expand Medicaid coverage – would benefit greatly from the expansion of Medicaid.

  • Nearly 300,000 Alabamians don’t have health coverage options because they fall into the Medicaid coverage gap.
  • Nearly half of Alabama workers do not get employer-sponsored health insurance.
  • The need for expansion is especially urgent right now as state officials unwind COVID-19 pandemic-era Medicaid policies, leaving about 61,000 Alabamians at risk of losing their Medicaid.
Download the full Alabama Report

Community Catalyst and United for Respect are working together to organize with millions of workers with low-wages for health coverage and care options. Together, we dug into the lack of health coverage options for working people in 4 states – Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas – in a new report, Health Care Coverage Gaps Among the Working Poor: Low-Wage Workers, Medicaid Eligibility and Employer Subsidized Plans. Here’s what we found:

  • Over 2 million people live in the coverage gap in states where their elected leaders have not expanded Medicaid. They make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but too little to afford any public or private insurance plans.
  • Because of systemic racism and historic systems of oppression, 60 percent of those working people in the Medicaid coverage gap are Black, Latinx/a/o and people of color.
  • Many people in the gap are adults working at large corporations like Walmart and Amazon, who also have a responsibility to provide quality health coverage for their workers.
Without access to health care, I can’t see a doctor or go to a hospital when I need it. I just try to fix myself, but I have arthritis in my legs and hips. If I’m in too much pain, I’m forced to miss work.
– Mark, who currently works at Walmart and cannot afford health coverage

Read more about Mark and millions of workers like him in Health Care Coverage Gaps Among the Working Poor: Low-Wage Workers, Medicaid Eligibility and Employer Subsidized Plans.

Download the Executive Summary
Download the Full Report