Rep. Ilhan Omar is blaming President Trump for the death of this 9-month-old baby in Texas:
A nine month old died as a direct result of Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and CHIP.
He is one of a million children to lose healthcare.
Let that sink in. https://t.co/U4q8uXksKZ
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) October 24, 2019
There’s just a few problems with her tweet, however. One, the 9-month-old isn’t dead (via the NYT):
HOUSTON — The baby’s lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen in the blood when his mother, Kristin Johnson, rushed him to an emergency room here last month.
Two, the hospital treated him even though he didn’t have insurance:
Only after he was admitted to intensive care with a respiratory virus did Ms. Johnson learn that he had been dropped from Medicaid coverage.
The 9-month-old, Elijah, had joined a growing number of children around the country with no health insurance, a trend that new Census Bureau data suggests is most pronounced in Texas and a handful of other states. Two of Elijah’s older siblings lost Medicaid coverage two years ago for reasons Ms. Johnson never understood, and she got so stymied trying to prove their eligibility that she gave up.
Three, he wasn’t covered because the mom didn’t submit the proper paperwork:
For Ms. Johnson, Elijah’s stay at Texas Children’s Hospital led to an appointment with an enrollment counselor who helped her try to figure out what had happened. Trying to re-enroll her older children earlier this year, she was asked for proof of income and missed the 10-day window to provide it; that may be why Texas dropped Elijah from Medicaid even though he qualified because he was a baby.
And four, he’s now covered:
All of her children are now re-enrolled. But she has started receiving thousands of dollars in bills from the baby’s hospital stay — bills she is counting on Medicaid to cover retroactively. And she is haunted by what might have happened if the hospital where she took Elijah had considered the case nonurgent and turned them away.
Other than that, good tweet, Ilhan.
Screenshot for posterity:
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