Medicaid does not equal food insecurity (poor access to healthy food). Receiving Medicaid does not define a person’s access or lack of access to a steady supply of food. Now that the U.S. employment plummeted last month by a degree not seen since the last recession, this has never been more important.

I talk to thousands of health care professionals each year on my speaking tours. Many times, health care providers tell me hunger doesn’t impact their patients because they have a low percentage of patients on Medicaid. Many professionals also tell me that they do not work with people who are food insecure because they do not work directly with SNAP (aka food stamps) or WIC.

Nothing can be further from the truth. Medicaid is not an indicator of food insecurity.

Can a patient who is on Medicaid be food insecure? Sure. But a patient on Medicaid can also have access to a steady supply of health food because of nutrition programs such as SNAP.

But more importantly, a patient who has a full-time job can also be food insecure. In fact, many people who are food insecure do work and often patch multiple part-time jobs together to make ends meet. They work paycheck to paycheck. They DO NOT qualify for food assistance help because their income are too high.

The High Cost of Hunger

Why should we care?

The cost of food insecurity in 2017 was $77.5 billion in additional health care expenditure!

The average health care cost difference between people who food insecure or food secure was estimated to be $1,863 per year. It is greater for patients with diabetes ($4,413) and heart disease ($5,144). The unprecedented impact of COVID 19 upon our national workforce will exponentially increase these numbers nationwide.

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Food Insecurity Resources

Are you looking for best practices, fact sheets, and other great resources on food insecurity?

My go-to resource is the Food Research Action Center website. I recently used their FACTS SNAP Strengths and learned that for every dollar spent on SNAP, $1.79 is generated in the economy! I love that SNAP  stimulates economic growth, prevents food insecurity, and nourishes our community.

Watch Clancy’s TEDx on her misconceptions of hunger.