NPR’s Jenny Gold reports on one woman’s effort to bring health coverage to people in some of North Carolina’s poorest counties. The story of health navigator Julia Buckner, who grew up in the western part of the state and returned home after studying theology. Says the report:

But for 9 out of 10 people she talks with. it seems as if there’s nothing she can do. They’re too poor to qualify for affordable health insurance in North Carolina, because they’re in what’s called the coverage gap. They don’t earn enough to qualify for a subsidy under the health law, and they can’t get Medicaid because North Carolina is one of the states that decided not to expand the program under the health law. The expansion in other places covers childless, low-income adults who previously didn’t get qualify for Medicaid.

“I take someone who’s working poor, I ask them to come see me, and then I find out that not only are they poor, but they’re too poor for me to help,” says Buckner, who grew up in the area. “It’s almost as if I wished I hadn’t seen them.”

Listen to the story here.