Jaiden Emmons, Elizabeth Baker and Suzan Emmons stand in their kitchen in Iola, a small town in southeastern Kansas. 
CREDIT:Ana Swanson/The Washington Post

IOLA, KANSAS — Suzan Emmons has done the most she can for the girls. Her small green house has bunnies in the back yard, class pictures proudly displayed on the living room wall, food in the refrigerator. She has scrimped from her annual salary of $14,000 to pay for one dance class each: tap for Elizabeth, jazz for Jaiden.

But far-off political decisions have made the haven that Emmons built for them more precarious.

Five years ago, she rescued Jaiden, her granddaughter, and Elizabeth, her granddaughter’s half sister, from a dangerous home. Today, she doesn’t make enough money to qualify for health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. She would qualify for Medicaid under Obamacare’s proposed expansion of the program, but because the Kansas governor turned down federal funds for that expansion, she doesn’t qualify there either, leaving her unable to afford insurance coverage.

Meanwhile, dramatic funding cuts at the state levels shuttered […]