Remember When You Were 18?

A tiny ray of light in Indiana.

Many youths leaving foster care when they turn 18 now will have government-provided health insurance under a change announced Tuesday by the state.

Those young people will qualify for Medicaid, the federal-state health-care program for the poor, if their incomes are less than $19,600, which is twice the federal poverty level for a single person.

Many children in foster care are there because they've been abused or neglected and, as a result, might have chronic physical and mental health needs, Lawson said.

"Simply to cut off their medical care because they turned 18 was horrible for us to do," Lawson said.

FYI for those of you not very familiar with Medicaid eligibility: you have to be not only financially eligible for Medicaid, but also categorically eligible, meaning: You have to be poor and fit into a "category" of being a child (up to age 18), a pregnant woman, a parent of a child, aged, blind, or disabled. In other words, if you just turned 19, and aren't pregnant or have a baby already, it doesn't matter how poor or sick or without a saftey net of family you are, you are pretty much SOL in most states.  In Indiana, the transition from being in foster homes to being basically kicked out into the cold cruel world just became a smidgen easier. Not by much, but we have to count every victory don't we? Or we would all just sink under the weight of cynicism.