CORBIN, Kentucky â Why would people vote for a presidential candidate who campaigned on taking away their health insurance?
Last week, we went to Corbin, Kentucky, to try to answer that question. Itâs a small city in southeastern Kentucky, an area of the country that has seen huge declines in its uninsured rate â but also voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
You can read more about what we learned there in this story, but we also wanted to give you the transcripts of the conversations we had so the people we talked to could speak for themselves.
Debbie Mills is a 53-year-old furniture store owner in Bell County, an area of the state right on the Tennessee border. Earlier this year, doctors discovered that her husband has non-alcoholic cirrhosis. He now needs a transplant if heâs going to survive. Mills and her husband keep a bag packed, waiting for the doctors to call with news that a liver is available.
This all means that Mills really, really needs her health insurance. And sheâs very grateful for the Affordable Care Act, because she couldnât afford insurance before it was passed.
And yet she voted for Donald Trump. Until we spoke, she said she hadnât taken Trumpâs repeal threats seriously. As we talked, she started to process what his election might mean for her familyâs future.
Hereâs that conversation, edited for clarity and length.
Can you walk through what your experience has been with Healthcare.gov?
The insurance we had before, we ended up paying about $1,200 a month for a family of five. It just kept going up each year.
So we ended up dropping it.
We didnât have health insurance. And we went for maybe two years with no insurance until this came out. We really didnât go to the doctor because it cost too much.
So for the past two years, we had the Healthcare.gov. Itâs made it affordable.
My husband ended up getting sick this year. He has non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.
Heâs lost all this weight and all this muscle tone. Some people donât recognize him that heâs known for years until he speaks and they recognize his voice.
But itâs been great to have health insurance, because I couldnât imagine what it would be like to not have it with all the treatments and things that heâs had to have done.
When we didnât have health insurance, we didnât go and get blood work and all that stuff done to be checked to see, you know, how his liver was doing.
He was taking medicines that could damage the liver for the cholesterol and all that stuff. But because it costs so much to get blood work done ⊠[the doctor] wanted it done every three months, and he would do it maybe once a year.
So just to be clear, he only got it once a year during the years that you didnât haveâ
Have insurance. Yes. Yeah.
So like I said, we didnât go get it done, and so now he is very sick.
ï»żSo what do you think about Obamacare as a law? I know itâs not especially popular.
I have liked the fact that it gave us health insurance, you know, and I know some have not. Some have not been wanting to be forced to have it. But other ones, I know it has helped. I know a lot of people that have gotten it that did not have health insurance before.
ï»żDid it change your opinion of President Obama at all? I know nothing about your politics at all, but if you did like himâ
Iâm not really a fan of his policies, but I like the fact that he gave me health insurance. And I have been worried about the fact that, you know, is it going to go awayï»żbecause, like I said, weâre in a situation now where I canât afford to pay $1,200 a month. And I canât go without insurance because he has to have it in order, you know ⊠a transplant could be a million dollars.
Did you vote in the election this year?
And do you mind telling us who you supported?
So how did you decide to vote for him, since heâs one of the people promising to repeal Obamacare?
Well ⊠we liked him because he just seemed to be a businessman.
Weâre in a small, rural area where thereâs not a lot of businesses right now going on, and so we canât really have anything else shut down, because it affects everybody.
We were in an area where thereâs lots of coal. And so we donât work in the coal mines, but ⊠one job affects this job and affects this job. If theyâre not working, theyâre not grocery shopping, theyâre not going and buying furniture, theyâre not buying clothes, theyâre not doing anything.
Weâre more or less sort of a general store. We sell a little bit of everything. But the coal miners are not able to purchase anything.
Christmas is a lot different than what it used to be because they were getting their Christmas bonuses. And they would come and they would buy the TVs and the recliners and they would redo the whole kitchen and do new dining room tables for the family Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever. And now itâs not like that.
Leading up to November 8, were you weighing the pros and cons of each candidate? Did you talk about Trumpâs position on the Affordable Care Act at all?
We would watch the debates and stuff every night. But we didnât really talk about the health care that much, even though it now is a major player in our life.
Are you surprised how much Republicans are talking about repeal?
Did you expect â do you think theyâll do it, or do you think itâll be too hard?
Iâm hoping that they donât, âcause, I mean, what would they do then? Would this go away? I mean, I mean, will the insurance? It will go away?
It will go, if they repeal it. I mean, itâll ⊠thatâs what they promised to do in so many elections.
Right, so, I donât know ⊠I donât know what weâll do if it does go away.
Do you think if it does go away, youâll regret your vote in any way? Thinking, âI voted for this person who took away my health insurance.â Or ⊠itâs like, thatâs one of so many things, like you said, jobs, the economy?
I donât know. I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this. That they would not do this, would not take the insurance away. Knowing that itâs affecting so many peopleâs lives. I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot ⊠purchase, cannot pay for the insurance?
You know, what are we to do?
So I donât know. Maybe heâs thinking about, you know, the little people that are not making the big money, like what they make in New York and Washington and all the places that, you know, this is not, you know, something â this is peopleâs lives thatâs being affected.
Yeah. Going into it, did you hear him talking about his health care promises, or was it not something that came up in his ads or debates for you?
Um, no, I guess we really didnât think about that, that he was going to cancel that or change that or take it away. I guess I always just thought that it would be there. I was thinking that once it was made into a law that it could not be changed, but I guess it can? Yes?
Did you feel like you heard them talking about Obamacare repeal in the campaign?
Well, we did hear him talking about it some, that he was going to, but like I said, I always just thought that he was, if he changed it, it would be that it would be some other form of health insurance that he would have.
No, I totally understand. During the debates, Trump was the one saying, âIâm going to cover everybody.â
I donât know. I guess the next four years is going to be different. I donât know what to look for. ï»ż
Youâre scaring me now, on the insurance part.
âCause I have been in a panic, so Iâm afraid now that the insurance is going to go away and weâre going to be up a creek.
Watch: Repealing Obamacare could change millions of lives
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