Surveys conducted throughout the pandemic showed that state Medicaid members were 20 percent more likely to socially distance and wear masks than non-Medicaid members, indicating the low rate is not due to vaccine resistance.
“There’s no question this is a difference between those who are impoverished and those who are not,” Mary Applegate, MD, a medical director at the Department of Medicaid, told the publication. “We saw more of the middle and upper classes able to drive to drive-thrus, get time off work, get childcare.”
In some neighborhoods with the state’s highest poverty rates, fewer than 10 percent of Medicaid members are vaccinated, the article said.
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