{"id":869683,"date":"2026-10-03T19:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T19:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/869683\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T19:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T19:08:24","slug":"kentucky-families-of-children-with-disabilities-say-theyve-lost-medicaid-coverage-after-federal-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/869683\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky families of children with disabilities say they\u2019ve lost Medicaid coverage after federal changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">RICHMOND, Ky. (WKYT) \u2014 Two Richmond mothers say their children with disabilities have lost Medicaid coverage following federal changes to the program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Raelynn Gammell, 9, was born with VACTERL association, a condition that impacts many of her body\u2019s systems. She is legally disabled and has historically always qualified for Medicaid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cBecause I\u2019m a single parent, we\u2019ve always relied on home nursing, which is paid for through Medicaid,\u201d said Megan Gammell, a nurse and Raelynn\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n<p>Coverage dropped during hospitalization<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Gammell said that after the federal spending bill pushed by the Trump administration passed last summer, she has had to fight to get her daughter\u2019s coverage back three times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cShe was on life support, and I remember the social worker coming and talking to me and telling me that her insurance had dropped her. We didn\u2019t think that she was going to survive, and they were dropping her due to Medicaid changes and cuts,\u201d Gammell said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The changes have left some parents of children with disabilities across Kentucky without coverage for thousands of dollars of treatments.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"link | text-reset d-block h-100 w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wkyt.com\/page\/wkyt-apps-for-ios-and-android-devices\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"WKYT Streaming Apps\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791054504_120_MEPHTWNVMREWLEQQWWFJM27ZMA.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a>Another mother describes rationing care<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Breanna Murphy, a nurse and mother of four-year-old Colson, said she is facing the same situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhat can I do? It\u2019s like I\u2019m going to have to ration what therapies we do,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">More people are still at risk of losing federal financial assistance. Last month, the Trump administration said it plans to remove an additional 760,000 people enrolled in Affordable Care Act subsidies, claiming fraud. It is unclear how many Kentuckians would be affected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe\u2019re already scarce on places we can take people, especially on the spectrum. He didn\u2019t ask for all of this specialty care, and it\u2019s not fair for them, it\u2019s not fair,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">And, with additional changes to Medicaid coming next year, many families say they fear losing even more of their coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RICHMOND, Ky. (WKYT) \u2014 Two Richmond mothers say their children with disabilities have lost Medicaid coverage following federal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[112566,2139,1490,2140,366610,77099,736,97,252,253,134888,9042,569,1341,1342,10346],"class_list":["post-869683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-aca-subsidies","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-autism","tag-big-beautiful-bill","tag-children-with-disabilities","tag-disabilities","tag-disability","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-healthcare-coverage","tag-insurance","tag-kentucky","tag-medicaid","tag-medicare","tag-richmond"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869683","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=869683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}