Health care's Appalachian spring

http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/nation/2014/04/24/obamacare-kentucky-floyd-county/8108687/
Health care's Appalachian spring
Obamacare comes to an old battlefield in the War on Poverty
Jayne O'Donnell and Rick Hampson, USA TODAY; Chris Kenning and Laura Ungar, The Courier-Journal

Introduction

Ambivalence

GRETHEL, Ky. — At 86, Eula Hall comes each day to the clinic she raised from the ashes of a defeat in the war on poverty, the one Lyndon Johnson declared when he came to these poor, lonely hills 50 years ago this month.

Now comes another plan from another president to improve life here — the Affordable Care Act, designed to provide health insurance for all.

When Eula Hall is asked about Obamacare, you expect this veteran of the war on poverty, who lives in the sickest county in one of the sickest states, to sing hosannas. Instead, she hedges.

"I'm glad people without insurance are getting it, but I'm a skeptic," she says of the law. "I can't have high hopes." Hall, a beloved figure who's tended the poorest of the sick at the Mud Creek Clinic here for four decades, shakes her head. "We'll have to wait and see.''.... MORE