Renee Arnold: Priced Out of Coverage While Caring for Others

Renee Arnold, a 56-year-old Pennsylvanian, has spent her entire career supporting people with disabilities. She began her work with children with special needs and now supports adults in a group home. Renee also lives with cerebral palsy, a condition she has navigated since birth. Her husband, Matthew, is also disabled. As she describes, he is “very low vision,” and his eyesight is worsening. After 27 years in the same customer service job, he was laid off because of his declining vision and has been unable to find new work despite sending “hundreds of resumes.”

For their entire marriage, Matthew has relied on Renee’s employer-sponsored insurance. But when their new enrollment information arrived, Renee learned that keeping him on her plan would cost $1,400 a month, more than her entire paycheck. It was devastating news. “As of December 31, 2025, he will not have insurance,” she says. “It terrifies me.”

Matthew’s medical needs are significant. He receives injections in his eyes every few months to prevent blindness caused by blood behind his retina, and he is also diabetic. “He is not going to have access to medical care without insurance,” Renee explains. She adds, “I am frustrated because he has to make a major decision. His eye doctor says he’s not legally blind yet, so he can’t be recommended for disability, but who is going to hire a 53-year-old man who can’t see?”

Renee is the only earner in their household. She works overtime to keep their housing secure, yet she still does not earn enough to afford the increased premiums. At the same time, she earns too much for Matthew to qualify for Medicaid. “I don’t have wiggle room,” she says. “I’m working as many hours as I can to keep a roof over our heads, and now we have to worry about this.”

The Affordable Care Act Marketplace is not an option for them either. “We can’t afford marketplace,” she explains, noting both the high premiums and the upcoming expiration of enhanced tax credits. She also worries that private plans would exclude coverage for Matthew’s conditions. “If you try to buy insurance privately, they consider the pre-existing conditions, so it won’t even be covered.”

The stress of navigating these impossible tradeoffs has pushed Renee to consider options she never imagined. “I honestly brought up the idea of divorcing him so he can get Medicaid,” she admits. She immediately acknowledges how extreme that sounds, but also how desperate their situation has become: “Honestly, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to talk to or if there is anything out there for him.” She adds, “I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do for him. I make too much money for him to be on Medicaid, and if I cut my hours, I can’t afford rent, which just went up another $150.”

Matthew’s experience shows what’s at stake when people who need continuous medical care lose coverage. Before they married, he rarely went to the doctor. Renee recalls rushing him to the hospital when he almost lost a limb to his diabetes, “his foot was black, and his bone was sticking out,”  she shared. Today, his diabetes is stable, and his eye condition is managed through ongoing treatment, but that stability depends entirely on access to care. “What’s going to happen now?” she asks. She adds, “I think the whole health care system is going to collapse. Because when people like my husband go into a diabetic shock because he can’t get his medicine, guess where he’s going to end up? The ER. And we don’t have the money to pay those hospital bills.”

Renee also points to the inequities built into the system. Politicians “get paid if they work or not,” she says, while workers like her only earn money when they can physically show up. “What happens if I’m working 80 hours a week and I can’t support my husband, what if something happens to me? We will be homeless.” She fears what will happen if more people lose access to care. “You’re going to have all these people that have no medical care, no mental health care. Crime is going to go up. People are going to be shoplifting for money and for medicine. It’s going to put a strain on the health care profession that’s already strained.”

Renee’s story highlights what millions of families across the country are experiencing: a health care system that is failing the people who rely on it most. And her message to policymakers is clear, direct, and urgent: “Everyone deserves health insurance. It is not a privilege. It should be offered to every single human being.” She urges elected officials to take action: “This isn’t a problem that can be swept under the rug. It needs to be dealt with now before it’s a bigger problem.”