NEW YORK (AP) — On hot afternoons, DeAnna Brandon’s three dogs zag around while she splashes in a backyard kiddie pool with her grandkids. These are the moments the 48-year-old blood cancer survivor cherishes — and wonders if she’ll get to have in the years to come. Brandon, who lives in Rockwell, North Carolina, is worried that new Medicaid work requirements starting next year could jeopardize her health coverage. She had expected to qualify for a medical frailty exemption, but new guidance introduced by President Donald Trump’s administration last week has thrown that into question. The interim final rule released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services means being sick with extreme exhaustion and memory challenges related to her treatments may not be enough for Brandon to evade the new work requirements. She’ll have to attest and later prove that those symptoms “significantly impair” her ability to fulfill the new mandates.
If the government doesn’t accept her case, she could lose her coverage — and the twice-monthly maintenance chemotherapy that keeps her multiple myeloma in remission. Working is “outside of the realm of possibility for me,” she said in an interview.
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