Individuals who fall into the Coverage Gap are between a rock and a hard place: they do not meet the categorical or income limits to qualify for Medicaid yet they also do not make enough to afford insurance on the Marketplace. Their jobs don’t provide health insurance and no other public programs make coverage available to them.

In North Carolina, up to 500,000 people would benefit from closing the gap and approximately 244,000 of these individuals have no other option for affordable health insurance.

These are their stories.