Republican proposal would upend a healthcare system in Indiana that covers many low-income people – in a program that Mike Pence put in place
Pam Martin flips through a binder of healthcare papers for the disabled brother she takes care of. Photograph: Justin Gilliland for the Guardian
Janice Phelps, a 60-year-old disabled factory worker in Evansville,Indiana, knows how expensive healthcare is.
Each month, shots for her severe asthma cost $3,000. Quarterly injections for knee pain cost $3,200. Medication for depression costs $900. She has had seven back surgeries, two shoulder surgeries, and two knee surgeries since 1985. The largest public health programs in America – Medicaid and Medicare, which aid the poor and the elderly – paid for nearly all of it.
Yet, those programs are now threatened by the men she voted for: Donald Trump and former Indiana governor Mike Pence.