Jonnell Wieder earned too much money at her job to keep her Medicaid coverage when the COVID-19 public health emergency ended in 2023 and states resumed checking whether people were eligible for the program. But she was reassured by the knowledge that Medicaid would provide postpartum coverage for her and her daughter, Oakleigh McDonald, who was born in July of that year.

Wieder is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana and can access some health services for free through her tribe's health clinics. But funding is limited , so, like a lot of Native American people, she relied on Medicaid for herself and Oakleigh.

Months before Oakleigh's first birthday, the date when Wieder's postpartum coverage would come to an end, Wieder completed and returned paper

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