Alabama Arise successfully leaped into action this year to defend health coverage for thousands of children. In February 2025, Rep. Ben Robbins, R-Sylacauga, introduced HB 177, which would have required that a child covered by Medicaid be placed on a non-custodial parent’s employer-provided health insurance when available, regardless of whether the parent could afford it. The bill also would have required Alabama Medicaid to sue parents who did not do so for payments made on the child’s behalf. Arise went into action.
Policy analysis: Looking for the devil in the details
After reading HB 177’s worrisome language, Arise senior policy analyst Carol Gundlach and other staff got to work on assessing its repercussions. As written, HB 177 would have:
- Required Alabama Medicaid to sue many parents.
- Put many parents who were already struggling into medical debt.
- Forced some victims of domestic violence into contact with their abusers.
Lawmakers turn to Arise for answers
On Feb. 19, the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee debated HB 177. Arise’s Robyn Hyden spoke in opposition.
“One example … is a friend [whose] take-home pay is $600 a week. … So she could opt in to pay for health insurance through her employer, [but] it would take more than one-third of her paycheck,” she said.
Many committee members raised questions about the bill’s potential harms. Acting committee chair Rep. Chris Blackshear, R-Phenix City, urged the sponsor to collaborate with Arise regarding our concerns.
Our members take action
At Cover Alabama’s advocacy day, Irondale resident Angelica McCain – equipped and encouraged by Arise – shared her story of being a single mother in the health coverage gap.
“There are so many people that benefit from Medicaid who don’t fit the stereotype,” McCain said. “We live in rural Alabama, and we live in cities. We’re white, Black, it doesn’t matter. They’re people like me, just trying to do our best for our kids.”
Later that day, she spoke directly to Robbins to explain how HB 177 would harm her family. In all, nearly 100 of our advocates visited their lawmakers that day.
Harm mitigation: Advocating for amendments
Arise continued speaking with legislators about HB 177. Robbins ultimately proposed a substitute version that removed some of the bill’s most harmful impacts. The substitute added an affordability test and clarified that the insurance requirements would not apply to custodial parents.
A quiet but mighty win
Sometimes a legislative win is obvious: A good bill is enacted into law. Other times, it looks more like stopping a bad bill or mitigating the harm it would cause. In the case of HB 177, Arise identified a bill that would have hurt vulnerable Alabamians. Then we successfully advocated to make it less harmful – and ultimately, the bill died.
This is just one example of the kind of critical legislative victories that Arise regularly secures for families across Alabama. Your advocacy and support of our work makes it all possible!