This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Trolley Square shooting victim Carolyn Tuft stood behind President Barack Obama at the White House last month to support tougher gun measures. On Monday, she made a surprise appearance at the Utah Legislature to beg for Medicaid expansion.

She said the mass shooting nine years ago made her an unintentional advocate for both gun control and Medicaid expansion.

"What happens to people when they are shot and survive? You don't realize they lose everything," Tuft said, adding she cannot afford the drugs needed to alleviate the lead poisoning — caused by the shooting — that is killing her.

Several lawmakers agreed aloud that she gives a different face to people who fall in the "coverage gap" and have had no insurance for years as the Legislature argues about whether and how to expand Medicaid coverage.

Tuft's then-15-year-old daughter, Kirsten Hinckley, was killed in the Feb. 12, 2007, shooting. Carolyn Tuft was shot three times.

"I live with lead poisoning because I have hundreds of lead pellets from the shotgun in me," Tuft said in a public comment period before an appropriations subcommittee began its daily business.

She added, "I was disabled that day. Before then, I owned a beautiful home. I was a single mom who worked hard. I had my own business. I paid my bills."

Now, "I'm really sick every day and I can't work. I live on $500 a month from disability. I live in the [coverage] crack because I don't qualify for Obamacare because I don't make enough money because I can't work because I was shot. And I don't qualify for Medicaid … because we don't have that expansion."

The Obama administration proposed funding a Medicaid expansion to cover such people. Some states, including Utah, rejected it, worried about long-term funding and costs. Gov. Gary Herbert proposed a partial expansion with a 90-10 federal-state split, which the state Senate passed last year — but the House blocked.

"I ask you to expand Medicaid," Tuft said, "because I need the medication to survive," including one drug that costs $1,100 a month to address the poisoning "from lead pellets … that are constantly leaching through my system that are killing me."

She broke into tears as she said she doesn't take that drug because "I don't have the money to buy it," and she takes "a bucketful of [other] medications every month just to get out of bed that I have to pay for from cash because I don't have a prescription benefit."

She added, "There are so many people who fall into the cracks who are suffering that don't fit into the Obamacare system and don't qualify for the Medicaid system. They are working hard to survive and need help. They are good, honest people like me who need help. I'm just here to beg for some Medicaid expansion."

Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake City, said Tuft's story "shows there is no one face of people who could be served and benefit from us moving forward with the expansion." She noted that some partial expansion proposed by House Republicans still would not cover Tuft.

Sen. Brian Shiozawa, R-Cottonwood Heights, who sponsored the governor's recommended expansion last year, told Tuft that she "certainly makes a realistic picture of many of those people who maybe do not find themselves in similar circumstances, but in similar plights in health-care-related issues."

Shiozawa, an emergency physician, added, "We still need to work on a reasonable solution. And my promise to you is as long as the problem exists, we're going to keep working on it until we do get a solution."