\u201cIt’s hard to overstate how important Medicaid expansion was to Eastern Kentucky,\u201d said Dustin Pugel, a researcher with the progressive Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. \u201cNearly half of the population is able to see a doctor or take medicine because of that program.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if the hills and hollows where much of Vice President JD Vance\u2019 s \u201cHillbilly Elegy\u201d was set \u2013 and where America launched the \u201cwar on poverty\u201d that created Medicaid \u2013 served as a key testing ground for that expansion, it\u2019s now gearing up for a test of its staying power.<\/p>\n
President Trump<\/a>\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d signed in July cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and a related children\u2019s health program over a decade, with the largest share of savings achieved by a new 80-hour-a-month work requirement. The law’s full provisions are projected<\/a> to increase the number of people without health insurance by 10 million by 2034.<\/p>\n Cuts to a federal program that Kentucky uses to pay providers means the state is projected to see a nearly $11 billion decline in rural Medicaid spending, one of the largest drops in the nation that will impact state hospitals and clinics, according to a KFF analysis<\/a>.\u00a0Republicans set aside $50 billion to aid rural health care providers, but experts expect it won’t offset Medicaid spending declines.<\/p>\n Kentucky\u2019s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, considered a possible 2028 presidential candidate, said the cuts would leave roughly 200,000 uninsured and leave up to 35 rural hospitals at risk of closing, most in Eastern Kentucky where they are critical to care and small-town economies.<\/p>\n Republican U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, who represents the 5th Congressional District covering much of the region that has the state’s highest Medicaid rates, said the change will only root out people who don\u2019t need to be in the program, preserving it for those who do.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe bill protects the longevity of Medicaid benefits for our most vulnerable population by slashing waste, fraud and abuse of the program,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>, R-Louisiana, has said the target is \u201c29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games.\u201d<\/p>\n How well people living with the instability of addiction, the irregularities of low-income work or poor access to transportation or internet navigate new requirements will take time to play out. Republicans delayed the work requirement until after the 2026 midterm election elections and provider cuts until 2028.<\/p>\n A lot could also depend on how much red tape is involved when states design systems for reporting work or gathering documentation to apply for an exemption such as being medically frail, including those with a substance use disorder.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in Kentucky, some medical providers are already looking for ways to tighten services or find ways to help patients meet the new requirements.<\/p>\n The coming changes set up a key political test of whether a rollback in benefits in a once-blue coal mining region that has turned deep red will generate political backlash among Trump voters.<\/p>\n What worries health advocates most is how their region, which drew an outsized benefit from Medicaid expansion, is now vulnerable to an outsized hit.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s definitely going to take its toll,\u201d said Greg Burke, a former federal prison official who now runs the Beacons of Hope rehabilitation center, where nine in 10 clients rely on Medicaid.<\/p>\n How upcoming Medicaid cuts could harm children with disabilities<\/p>\n Parents of children with disabilities say the Medicaid cuts in the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill\u201d will directly impact the well being of their kids.<\/p>\n At a clinic dependent on Medicaid, recipients face uncertainty<\/p>\n On a recent Monday afternoon in Hazard, the county seat of Perry County, Sherri Crace walked into a former K-Mart built atop a former coal mine that now houses a 105,000-square-foot Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky clinic. Like Crace, half of the clinic\u2019s patients are on Medicaid.<\/p>\n The 50-year-old Hazard resident, dressed in a black Harley Davidson T-shirt, was called to an exam room, where a health worker drew a blood sample as part of her treatment for diabetes and the neuropathic pain that accompanies it.<\/p>\n Crace, a high-school graduate who has worked a string of jobs including with a siding company, was grateful when Kentucky expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act from covering traditional groups such as pregnant women and the disabled to include low-income adults.\u00a0<\/p>\n She was working but couldn\u2019t afford insurance. Better paying jobs that offer affordable private insurance are few and far between, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen coal was going, most of the men around here had jobs,\u201d she said. \u201cCoal pay is pretty good, but that’s gone. It’s long gone. There’s nothing here now.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, she recalled, Republicans railed against the Affordable Care Act, likening what many called Obamacare to socialism.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody was just tore up over it,\u201d she said. \u201cObamacare was a good thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n She wasn\u2019t alone. Between 2013 and 2015, Perry County\u2019s uninsured rate dropped from 17% to 8%. Significantly, one study showed<\/a>, fewer residents were skipping medications and more were getting regular care for chronic illnesses in a region that has some of the nation\u2019s highest rates of diseases \u2013 including cancer.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the Medicaid expansion really helped identify sick people and start to help treat them sooner than later,\u201d Primary Care Clinic CEO Barry Martin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The percentage of uninsured patients at his clinic fell from 13% to 1%, stemming losses and allowing them to expand services and grow to more than 400 staff in multiple locations. Medicaid spending to providers represents over 13% of GDP in Eastern Kentucky.<\/p>\n Now the clinic, and patients such as Crace, are bracing for change.<\/p>\n Starting Jan. 1, 2027, most adults on Medicaid and parents with children above age 13 will have to regularly document that they completed 80 hours of work or community service per month or enroll in an educational program at least half-time. It applies to able-bodied adults 18-64 who are not disabled and deemed capable of working.<\/p>\n Those requirements must be met for a month ahead of enrollment. And the state must perform eligibility checks every six months instead of a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s a big change from a few years ago, when the region notched some of the nation\u2019s highest COVID-19 rates and the Biden Administration allowed people to remain on Medicaid during the pandemic. Since eligibility checks were restored, statewide enrollment fell from 1.7 to 1.4 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n Martin agrees with the idea of work requirements. And Kentucky has already passed legislation calling for them. He could hire some people to work at the front desk registering patients, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Between 2022 to 2024, about 51% of Kentucky adults on Medicaid were working full or part time. Another 36% were ill or disabled or caring for family members. Nearly 11% were going to school, retired or couldn’t find work. Only 2% were not working for some reason which the survey couldn\u2019t identify, according to the economic policy center.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Martin worries people will lose coverage because they aren\u2019t savvy, feel the bureaucracy is too cumbersome or fail to get around to it. Because Medicaid is administered by managed-care companies that offer coverage under different program names, some don\u2019t even realize they\u2019re on Medicaid.<\/p>\n An Arkansas program started in 2018<\/a> and stopped by federal courts cut more than 18,000 residents from Medicaid within the first seven months, often because people were unaware of paperwork requirements<\/a> to keep their coverage. The program did not increase employment.<\/p>\n Fewer covered patients would mean more unreimbursed costs for hospitals and less money to fund services and pay workers. That in turn would take money out of the local economy, potentially impacting other businesses. To get ahead of it, Martin is pressing the state to allow state health insurance navigators the ability to make eligibility determinations on site, rather than relying on patients to set up appointments or file paperwork he believes too many will fail to do.<\/p>\n That could help keep eligible recipients on the rolls to soften an impact that remains unclear at this point, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know it\u2019s going to impact us, we just don\u2019t know how hard,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Crace, working became tougher when she went through a divorce and began taking care of her 76-year-old mother, Luetta, whose health problems include dementia. While she may qualify for an exemption, she worries about being tripped up by constant paperwork checks.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI really don’t like the fact that, if (President Trump) is going to try to start saving money, he looks at the poorest of the poor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Down the hall, in another exam room, Denver Feltner sat with his shirt lifted by arms dotted with tattoos and letters spelling\u00a0 \u201cWild Card\u201d on his knuckles. Dr. John Jones strolled in and examined an implanted glucose monitor connected to an insulin pump that had become dislodged.<\/p>\n Feltner, 38, is a father of five children from a previous marriage. He said he lives in a double-wide and works two jobs, earning $16 an hour as a call dispatcher and $13 at a Double Quick gas station. Neither had an affordable private health care option, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n While finding well-paying career jobs is difficult, Feltner, a Trump voter, thinks people will take available jobs to keep Medicaid coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s jobs, if you go out and look for them, and you’re willing to do it, but a lot of people just aren\u2019t willing to take any kind of job,\u201d he said. \u201cYou got a lot of able-bodied people just that, just sit at home and live off the government and draw like $1,000 in food stamps. They still go out and work, they just go out and do stuff and get paid in cash, like cutting grass.\u201d<\/p>\n Feltner lost Medicaid following a split with his children\u2019s mother. He took on more work and became ineligible. So he enrolled in a subsidized Health Insurance Marketplace<\/a> plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n While his\u00a0 premiums are very low, his deductible and co-pays for things like prescriptions for insulin equipment run hundreds of dollars per month. Any hospital visit carries a $3,000 deductible. Amid rising costs for food and higher electricity rates, he said, \u201cit\u2019s been a struggle lately.\u201d<\/p>\n And with the ACA\u2019s enhanced premium tax credits<\/a> enacted during the pandemic \u2013 which boosted enrollment and subsidies \u2013 current set to expire at the end of 2025, premiums are expected to increase for 2026 by an average of 75%, according to health experts at Johns Hopkins University<\/a>.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not sure what he\u2019d do if that became unaffordable.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’d probably be really bad sick in the hospital with bills I can’t pay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hospitals eye funding cuts and reductions<\/p>\n A 32-mile drive to the north, across the county line, Ron McIntosh took a deep breath outside a small hospital along the North Fork Kentucky River.\u00a0<\/p>\n Inside, doctors worked to figure out why his daughter was sick.<\/p>\n The 55-year-old drove 45 minutes through the mountains to Kentucky Rivers Medical Center, the closest hospital to his home.<\/p>\n It\u2019s located in Breathitt County, where Vice President JD Vance wrote about visiting from Ohio as a child in his 2016 memoir \u201cHillbilly Elegy,\u201d which recalled an area struggling with poverty, addiction and instability.<\/p>\n Now the medical center is among 35 rural hospitals \u2013 the most of any state \u2013 that University of North Carolina researchers identified as being financially vulnerable<\/a> to closure.<\/p>\n If that were to happen, McIntosh said he\u2019d see his drive more than double.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be really bad for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Republicans have argued the study doesn\u2019t take into account an extra $50 billion directed to rural facilities included in the big spending bill. And systems such as Appalachian Regional Healthcare said there are no current plans to close any of its hospitals in the region.<\/p>\n But Nancy Galvagni, president and CEO of the Kentucky Hospital Association, said the fund isn\u2019t expected to cover the Medicaid funding cuts to hospitals in the region. As a result, some are already weighing possible cutbacks in programs.<\/p>\n \u201cHospitals can’t wait until the cuts are starting to figure out how they’re going to manage,\u201d she said. \u201cSome hospitals may not be able to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n Kentucky providers are facing a decline in Medicaid reimbursement when the law curtails a key source of funding Kentucky uses to bolster hospitals starting in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n That includes state-directed payments used to raise reimbursement to average commercial rates, instead of the Medicaid rate that covers only 82% of costs, and provider taxes that fund those by triggering federal matching funds, Galvagni said.<\/p>\n Harrison Memorial Hospital Chief of Strategy David Asher told the publication Tradeoffs<\/a>, a nonprofit health care publication, that his Cynthiana, Kentucky hospital was already looking for ways to cut $2 million a year and make choices about what services it can afford to provide.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, will we survive? I\u2019m pretty confident that we will,\u201d Asher said. \u201cBut will we be operating like we do today? Chances are high that we\u2019re not going to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Traditional money-losing services for many hospitals include obstetrics, behavioral health and cancer centers, Galvagni said.<\/p>\n Galvagni said her group is working with state congressional representatives to seek a delay or an increase in the state\u2019s low federal Medicaid reimbursement rate, which is based on cost of living and impacted by Kentucky\u2019s higher poverty rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Another worry is the potential knock-on effect in many Eastern Kentucky communities, where hospitals are among the biggest employers and big contributors to the local economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Kentucky Hospital Association says new restrictions on how much hospitals can get reimbursed could endanger 20,000 jobs, losses that would land disproportionately hard in Eastern Kentucky.<\/p>\n Rogers, the area congressman, said in a statement provided to USA TODAY that \u201cadditional funding may be necessary here in Kentucky.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs reconciliation work continues, along (with) the appropriations for fiscal year 2026 and beyond, I will continue to work toward securing necessary resources for healthcare in Kentucky\u2019s Appalachian region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, there are a lot of unknowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Breathitt County, Susie Morgan, CEO of the Kentucky Rivers Medical Center, said she believed that impacts from cuts were several years awa. She said the hospital is looking for ways to bolster its finances, such as using the Kentucky Rural Hospitals Loan Program.<\/p>\n How big a bite the law takes on enrollment, which also impacts provider finances, could depend on how states enact regulations and systems around the law, such as defining what is considered \u201cable-bodied\u201d and the disabilities or other conditions that qualify for exceptions to the requirements, according to Gerard Anderson<\/a>, a Health Policy <\/a>professor at Johns Hopkins.<\/p>\n And how states design eligibility verification systems \u2013 whether they pile on red tape or find ways to automate much of the process \u2013 could blunt or sharpen the law\u2019s impact, Pugel said. States, including Kentucky, are waiting for federal guidance to be issued by year\u2019s end, Pugel said.<\/p>\n Either way, those systems are expected to be costly.<\/p>\n In Georgia, the only state that currently has a Medicaid work requirement, most of the $54.7 million spent by September 2024 went to administering it, with just $19.5 million of that spent on health benefits, according to figures provided by the state community health department and previously reported by USA TODAY<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Galvagni said she wants people to realize the effects go beyond people on Medicaid.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf a hospital because of these cuts in reimbursement can no longer maintain a service, that service goes away for everyone, not just people on Medicaid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Will Medicaid give Democrats a new foothold?\u00a0<\/p>\n On a hot August night, members of a Perry County Democratic women\u2019s club clustered around tables in an aged Victorian mansion perched on a hillside in Hazard, decorated with ornate wallpaper, paintings and antiques. A table held platters of sandwiches.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ned Pillersdorf, a lawyer who said he decided to run for office because of cuts to Medicaid, stood up to speak.<\/p>\n Pillersdorf, best known for his role in defending striking coal miners in 2016 and representing residents who said they\u2019d unfairly lost Social Security benefits after attorney Eric Conn was charged with orchestrating $550 million in Social Security fraud<\/a>. Conn was convicted after being captured in Honduras after six months on the run. His story is detailed in the four-part AppleTV+ series, \u201cThe Big Conn.\u201d<\/p>\n On this night, Pillersdorf cast the work requirements as a bureaucratic tripwire designed to push people off the rolls, one masquerading as a reasonable requirement. \u201cA lot of vulnerable people are going to lose their benefits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cRepublicans have made the cynical and probably correct assumption that the Medicaid people who are going to lose their benefits, they don’t vote and they don’t give money to political action committees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It may be an uphill campaign in a region solidly behind Trump and where Rogers, who has served in Congress since 1981, sailed to reelection uncontested in 2024 and beat a Democratic challenger in 2022 with 82% of the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Pillersdorf and other Democrats are hoping cuts to the social safety net will provide a new political foothold.<\/p>\n And they come amid other cuts and added requirements to safety-net programs including Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. Earlier this year, The Trump Administration laid off the entire staff<\/a> of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).<\/p>\n A national poll earlier this year from KFF<\/a> found 61% of Republicans, 71% of independents and 83% of Democrats see Medicaid as important to their communities.<\/p>\n \u201cI take questions and answers everywhere I go,” he said. “I’d say 90% of the people talk to me about the big, ugly bill and the Medicaid cuts.”<\/p>\n While Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley warned in an op-ed that cutting healthcare to the working poor was “morally wrong and politically suicidal,” Kentucky\u2019s long-serving U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell said voters would \u201cget over it<\/a>,\u201d Punchbowl News reported.<\/p>\n Whether voters will levy a political price is far from clear.<\/p>\n Michael Shepherd, who studies health management and policy at the University of Michigan, recently examined who voters held responsible<\/a> for rural hospital closures. He found that in states where Republicans chose not to expand Medicaid – home to 80% of hospitals that closed since the Affordable Care Act passed \u2013 voters blamed Democrats and the ACA.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a lot of research that shows voters often struggle to assign responsibility correctly, especially when policies have complex, delayed effects,\u201d he reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the Hazard gathering, Ronnie Collins, president of the Perry County Young Democrats, said many people he\u2019s spoken in the health care industry downplayed the potential fallout. Collins shook his head.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople already don’t want to go to the doctor around here. Anything at all that’s gonna make it harder, you’re not gonna go. I’ve been begging dad to go for years. Go to the dentist, go to the doctor. Anything happens to his insurance, or, God forbid, the hospital up here shuts down, he ain’t gonna drive to go to a doctor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Drug treatment facilities brace for change\u00a0<\/p>\n As the sun was setting behind framed mountains just past 8 p.m. at Beacons of Hope, a dozen women sat in cushy arm chairs in a main living room. They went around the room, one by one, to express gratitude as part of their recovery.<\/p>\n They thanked God, drug courts, relatives and treatment staff.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m grateful for Malachi,\u201d Kassondra Smith, 40, said of her 9-year-old son, and those taking care of him while she was in treatment for addiction to drugs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Outside, men emerged from a gray-sided group home to smoke cigarettes amid a day of addiction meetings, peer support, dinner, chores and study. The residential treatment program works to transition residents to stable jobs and education.<\/p>\n Throwing a game of corn hole was Howard Carr, 50, the son of a coal-miner. He said his addiction had caused job losses and a wreck that led to lasting health problems. Like almost everyone else, Medicaid was paying for his treatment.<\/p>\n While drug treatment was made an essential health benefit for many insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid expansion helped expand treatment to low-income adults who couldn\u2019t afford private insurance. Treatment options skyrocketed in Kentucky. A study in 2024<\/a> found Kentucky had the most residential treatment beds per capita.<\/p>\n In 2023, Kentucky spent more than $800 million for substance abuse treatment. In 2023, Kentucky saw 1,984 overdose deaths<\/a>, a 9.8% decline from 2022.<\/p>\n But there have been problems, too. The FBI has investigated Kentucky company Addiction Recovery Care<\/a>, the largest provider, on health care fraud allegations. No criminal charges have been brought against the company, the Courier-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported last year. More recently, the Lexington Herald-Leade<\/a>r reported that Addiction Recovery Care cut staff and closed some centers, citing reduced payment for behavioral and mental health care services in Kentucky.<\/p>\n Burke, the executive director of Beacon of Hope, said he understands wanting to cut spending on Medicaid. But he argued that treatment pays off compared to costs to the criminal justice system and the unreimbursed emergency room costs that often follow addiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n And he worries those facing addiction are least equipped to handle documenting their eligibility for Medicaid, especially in the month prior to qualifying and getting treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not going to do that,\u201d he said, noting he\u2019s also working to figure out ways to get people help with it once it kicks in.<\/p>\n But finding a way to meet those will be critical to turning around lives. And for a case study in that, he points directly to Caudill, who now works at the treatment center doing maintenance and helping others as they recover.<\/p>\n After spending months in a FEMA trailer following devastating floods last winter, Caudill moved into a low-income apartment in a hollow outside of town with his partner, Cassie Collins, 31, a waitress who is recovering from substance abuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n With them on a recent day at his apartment, not far from where dozens of vehicles waited in a long line at a food pantry, was his stepdaughter Isabella, 9, and son, Kash, 2. Their other children were with a relative.<\/p>\n Caudill said he knows he has finally turned the page. He\u2019s got a car. He\u2019s made amends to his aunt from whom he stole for his habit. He is working to build his own house painting business, Kash Money Painting, named after his son. He started to shoot baskets again.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’m trying to make up for everything, he said. \u201cI\u2019ve come a long way in the last couple years.\u201d<\/p>\n And he now has private health insurance through his job at Beacons, thanks, he says, to the leg-up from Medicaid that he credits with saving his life.<\/p>\n He just hopes many others who need help get the same chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky\u2019s 2014 Medicaid expansion improved health care and drug treatment in some of America\u2019s poorest counties. Now, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[3045,5867,58638,966,13720,7826,41224,14804,12,685,26590,2605,24075,83517,97,252,9041,253,23665,27844,9042,8326,569,3729,983,1341,58639,13410,34645,3,13470,34647,14734,12921,37967,37970,29461,37968,30106,27842,26587,3479,13692],"class_list":["post-132272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-abuse","tag-alcohol","tag-appalachia","tag-article","tag-article-plus","tag-charity","tag-charity-u0026-philanthropy","tag-donald","tag-donald-trump","tag-drug","tag-drug-u0026-alcohol-treatment","tag-drugs","tag-hal","tag-hal-rogers","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-insurance","tag-healthcare","tag-image","tag-image-topper","tag-insurance","tag-johnson","tag-kentucky","tag-local","tag-local-news","tag-medicaid","tag-mike","tag-mike-johnson","tag-negative","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-negative","tag-philanthropy","tag-plus","tag-recreational","tag-recreational-drugs","tag-rogers","tag-substance","tag-substance-abuse","tag-topper","tag-treatment","tag-trump","tag-u0026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/84620233007-medicaid-families-latham-va-01.jpg\"\/)
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